Loose Ends
by Sashile
Summary: A murdered Marine, a Chinese spy, and a Navy lieutenant come together in a way that makes things complicated for NCIS, especially when that lieutenant learns she's going to have to trust the MCRT if she wants to tie up some loose ends she left hanging.
1. Chapter 1

**Loose Ends**

_Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS or any of the show's characters. If I did, I think we would all know the direction that the show would be going._

_Summary: A murdered Marine lieutenant, a Chinese spy, and a Navy lieutenant working for the NSA come together in a way that makes things very complicated at NCIS. When something from her past comes up, the lieutenant learns that she's going to have to trust the MCRT if she wants to take care of the last of her loose ends before she can move forward._

_A/N: This was written for LJ's NCIS Big Bang and has absolutely nothing to do with my previous series of stories. It is, however, related to my story on FictionPress (link to my FP account is in my profile), and takes place a couple of years after that one (and by "years", I mean in a completely fictional capacity, the type of situation that allows for 1991 to have 1000+ days and one second to take four months). There's nothing in this story that requires reading that one first, but doing so gives you more background for some of the characters._

* * *

**Preface: June. Outside Beijing, China**

He stared at the young woman sitting across the desk from him, and she just stared back. That in itself was unusual; he could count on one hand the number of people who dared meet his gaze for longer than a few seconds before looking away with fear or envy or nervousness or all of those. His own parents weren't even on that list.

He wasn't surprised by her unusual actions; after ten months of working with this woman, he knew that there was very little about this woman that _was_ usual. Ten months, and he still didn't know how to begin figuring her out. He knew the bare facts, knew the story that she told automatically whenever she was asked—she was Dr. Helen Chang, a Greek-born, American-educated mathematician. After a few years of playing the academia game in the States—and playing it very well, from everything his intelligence agents had reported to him—she defected to her father's homeland of China, bringing with her all the best that an MIT education could offer to the People's Republic of China's top intelligence agencies, where she spent most of her time in the cryptography unit, breaking American and European codes as if she had completed more complicated puzzles before she was five.

The mystery that he still couldn't figure out was in what kind of person Dr. Helen Chang really was behind that impassive stare and exotic green eyes, that aloof personality and Greek accent. She offered no details of her life before she suddenly appeared in Beijing ten months before, not even sharing what inspired her to leave her tenure-track position at CalTech to offer her services to the Chinese government. His suspicions, as well as those of his superiors—most of their foreign assets were recruited; despite what the American movies would have one believe, not many people were willing to spy against their home nations and risk certain death, not even for healthy compensation—led to a more thorough search into her background. It didn't take too much digging to find that her father was a former political prisoner from the Cultural Revolution who had left Beijing to seek asylum in Greece more than thirty years before. When confronted about that piece of intelligence, she coldly replied that her father's ideals were not her own, and that if they wanted to judge her based on something a man she barely spoke to did years before she was born, she would take her talents elsewhere. And with her detached air, they believed that she would do exactly that. She didn't seem to care who she was working for, as long as the pay was good and the work interesting.

Much to her obvious frustration and annoyance, her first several weeks in China were spent on a series of tests and dummy codes, their inabilities to figure out what she was doing there keeping them from trusting her with anything much more sensitive than the Beijing phone book, but if she was a spy, she was a damned good one. Better than good. Paranoia was the rule, rather than the exception, among intelligence operatives, and if they couldn't find any suspicious activity, it meant that there was none to be found. Other than her father's history, there were no flags in her background, no communications to anyone outside of her cryptography unit, with the exception of emails to a woman in Greece who may or may not have been a former lover. They had a senior officer within that same cryptography unit peruse those emails carefully, looking for anything to indicate that she was communicating with someone covertly, but there was nothing to be found.

"What do you need, Dr. Chang?" the man finally asked, getting bored with the staring game.

"I just received word that my father has passed away," she said, as calmly as if she was reporting the weather. "I must return to Greece to settle his estate."

"There is no one else?"

She shook her head. "My mother has been dead for several years. I have no brothers or sisters. It is only me. It will not be permanent, likely three months, four at the most."

They went back to staring at each other, challengingly. She was challenging him to say no; he was challenging her to just leave. Finally, he shrugged. "Your passport and documents will be flagged," he informed her. She nodded, her expression showing that she wasn't surprised by the move.

"I expected as much." As well she should; at this point, she had a not-insignificant number of Chinese secrets in that very attractive, half-Chinese head of hers. She gestured toward the door. "May I leave?" He just shrugged, and watched as she rose from the chair and headed to leave. He enjoyed watching her leave; her body was another one of those things that was unusual in this place. Most of the members of the cryptography unit were short and squat—and male—but Helen Chang was close to 190 centimeters, and while the shapeless gray smock she wore—practically the uniform around such places—covered up most of her figure, it didn't hide the fact that below it were long, lean lines and a tiny waist. He may not completely trust her, and certainly didn't understand her, but that didn't stop him from fantasizing about the body below the smock or how it would feel to have those legs wrapped around his waist. He licked his lips involuntarily, a lapse of control that was unusual for him and instantly cause a surge of annoyance at himself and anger at her for having that sort of control over him.

She turned back toward him before walking through the door. "I will return soon," she said. He wondered if the reluctance that tinged her voice was just his imagination; probably, given that her Greek accent made it difficult to interpret. He didn't say anything in response as he looked right into her remarkable green eyes. She blinked once, and then was gone.

---

**Chapter 1: November. Washington, DC **

Petty Officer First Class Michael Sanders grinned to himself as he slid the motorcycle helmet over his head. Since starting his current billet at the Pentagon, it wasn't often that he got to leave work early, and he was bound and determined to take full advantage of it, especially with the unseasonably-warm weather. He made a mental note to send his CO's nine-year-old daughter a stuffed animal to thank her for getting sick in school while her mother was on vacation, making it necessary for Captain Jenkins to leave to pick her up and take care of her personally. In a rare demonstration of kindness—or maybe realism, as they couldn't do much without the captain—he sent his staff home as well.

He was about to take the usual surface roads through downtown DC when he abruptly changed his mind, taking a corner onto Beach Drive tighter than necessary. The route home through Rock Creek Park may be twice as long geographically as going through Washington, but it was much more scenic and infinitely more fun to ride—twisting roads, only a few stoplights, and hardly any traffic to get in his way. With the November weather typically far too cold for playing around on his motorcycle, he reluctantly admitted that it was probably time to retire the bike for the winter, and one last fun ride was just what he needed.

It wasn't long until the city was behind him and he was on the other side of the park in Maryland, idling as he waited for the light to change at Connecticut Avenue. He gunned his bike as soon as he saw green, crossing the usually busy road to stay on Beach Drive as he reflected on his daily commute. If he had his say, he'd be saving money and living in Virginia, enjoying a house with a yard for less than the two-bedroom condo he shared with his girlfriend, but for as long as he wanted to keep the girlfriend, he wasn't going to be getting his way. She was a corpsman, the non-commissioned officer in charge of the ENT clinic at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, and she liked the convenience of the North Bethesda condo—it was close enough to bike, or even run, through the park to get to work whenever she wanted, and close enough to the White Flint Metro station for when she didn't want. He did have to admit that the running trails through Rock Creek Park were nice, definitely nicer than just running on sidewalks all the time, and the scenery was certainly nothing to complain about. He grinned as his eyes traveled over the body of a woman running along one of the paths—definitely nothing to complain about. A second later, he registered who that body belonged to and quickly averted his gaze. It wasn't until after they moved in that they discovered one major flaw to their building: it was crawling with officers, mostly medical students at the Uniform Services University of Health Sciences and doctors at Bethesda and Walter Reed. He couldn't even go to the Chipotle across the street from the building without finding himself surrounded by khaki and various patterns of digital camo, all marked with gold bars and silver railroad tracks, and apparently couldn't even ride his motorcycle through the park without seeing one of those doctors, in this case Katie Cox, a Navy lieutenant and one of the ENT surgeons who worked in the clinic with Amanda. She was apparently quite a prima donna, or, as Amanda liked to say, "a real bitch." Almost a year ago, they had seen her being escorted out of one of the bars in Bethesda by two of her friends, too drunk to stand on her own power. Amanda confided to him the other day that she still couldn't look at Dr. Cox without biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing out loud.

He was almost at his exit from the park at Grosvenor Lane when he noticed something out of place. Frowning to himself, he turned his bike into one of the widened areas of the road that served as parking areas for two or three cars at a time, allowing people could go jogging or biking on one of the nearby trails. This de facto parking lot, however, had only one car, a hybrid Honda Civic with its hazards blinking, which was what caught Sanders' attention in the first place. Idling his motorcycle, he lifted the visor on his helmet and inched forward to get a better look, to see if anyone was around or needed help. His frown deepened when he noticed that the car was empty, and a cursory glance around didn't reveal anybody nearby—no middle-aged man making a quick pit stop behind a tree, no teenaged couple out for a quickie—until he looked down.

"Holy shit," he murmured. He reached into his pocket and fumbled for his cell phone to call the police, not even bothering to check to see if the petite red-headed Marine lieutenant was still alive.

In his experience, one didn't last long with her head three feet away from her body.


	2. Chapter 2

**Loose Ends: Chapter 2**

_A/N: I just wanted everyone to know, I wrote this story before last night's episode aired. That's fairly irrelevant now, but what I mean should become clear in the next couple of chapters. I repeat: I did not plagerize any characters or ideas from the show writers. _

* * *

"Aha!" NCIS Special Agent Tony DiNozzo declared as he entered the squad room, seeing the thin FedEx envelope sitting on his desk, likely delivered a few hours before. It was later in the morning than he typically arrived, on account of the mandatory off-site training he and several other agents just completed, and he felt almost sad that he missed the actual delivery of the package he had been waiting for. He picked it up, admiring all angles with a wide grin on his face. "I have been waiting for you, my friend."

"Who is he talking to?" Mossad Officer Ziva David asked Special Agent Timothy McGee as she entered the bullpen, only a few steps behind her partner.

"The envelope," McGee replied calmly from his desk.

"He is not expecting an answer, is he?" she asked with a frown.

"It's not nice to talk about people as if they aren't there," DiNozzo said to them before ripping open the envelope. He waved a pair of what looked like sports tickets in his hand. "Read them and weep. Courtside tickets, right in the middle, to the Big-10 basketball playoffs, at The Ohio State University."

"Tony, it's November," McGee pointed out. "You don't even know who's _going_ to the playoffs."

"It's going to be Ohio State," DiNozzo replied indignantly, defending his alma mater.

"Not if Michigan has anything to say about it," Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs commented as he rounded the corner into the squad room, cup of coffee in hand.

"We don't say that word, Boss."

Gibbs leveled him with a stare before saying, "Grab your gear."

Instantly on his feet, DiNozzo gave his tickets one more longing stare before swapping them for his Sig. "Where are we going, Boss?"

"Rock Creek Park," Gibbs replied, already headed for the elevator. "Marine lieutenant found without a head."

"I am getting tired of Rock Creek Park," Ziva commented as she slid into the elevator. "It seems as if nobody ever comes out alive." Gibbs only smiled grimly in reply.

---

"That the guy who found the body?" DiNozzo asked, nodding toward the slightly ill-looking man in his late twenties, a yellow reflective vest over a leather motorcycle jacket, leaning against his bike as he talked to Gibbs. "What's his story?"

"Petty Officer First Class. He's an aide to a captain at the Pentagon, lives just up Rockville Pike from here," McGee said absently, still gathering gear from the back of the truck. "Saw the car, came over to investigate, called us."

"Pentagon to Rockville?" DiNozzo asked, attaching the lens to his camera. "Long commute."

McGee shrugged. "Maybe he likes the area."

"He do it?"

"Does he really look like the type to do that?" McGee pointed over to the body, which DiNozzo turned to for the first time, barely suppressing a shudder.

"Decapitation. Gross," he muttered, snapping a picture of the uniformed headless body. "It's high on my list of ways I _don't_ want to go."

"I agree," Ziva David said darkly. DiNozzo glanced over at his partner and saw the tight expression on her face as he recalled having a similar conversation a few years before. The words 'never be taken alive' crossed his mind, and he shivered involuntarily.

"Actually, Anthony, Ziva, it is quite painless, if it is done right. You are dead before you realize anything had happened." Both agents turned at the Scottish brogue of their medical examiner, already kneeling on the ground, examining the body.

"_If_ it's done right?" DiNozzo asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, yes," Dr. Donald Mallard replied. "If the murderer is too slow or inexperienced, it could be quite painful indeed." He leaned closer to the head, examining the cut. "Whoever did this was very experienced. The lieutenant likely did not suffer at all."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Agent McGee asked from his position at the car.

"It means that he did not want her tortured," Ziva replied matter-of-factly, her voice still tight. "He was not after any information that she had. She was in the wrong place at the right time."

"Wrong place at the _wrong_ time, Ziva," DiNozzo corrected.

"Whatever," she waved off. "What I mean was, this had nothing to do with the lieutenant. He did not cause her pain and he did not try to hide the body. He left it in the middle of the park next to a car with the hazards on. He did not care who found out about her demise." She studied the car for a moment. "One could argue that he wanted her found quickly, in fact."

"But why?" McGee asked with a frown. "Why not just leave her there and move on?"

"It could be suggestive of some sort of code of honor," Ducky suggested. "In the battles of old, and to some extent, as recently as the Second World War, enemy soldiers would not hesitate to kill one another, but did so in a respectful manner. There seemed to have been an awareness of the fact that soldiers on both side were fighting not for lust of killing but for honor of king or country, and enemies were treated as one would have liked to have been treated had the roles been reversed." He glanced back down at the face of the young Marine. "It may be that our killer has served in the military and respected our young lieutenant for who she was, an enemy soldier who gave her life in battle. Whatever the reason, however, I believe we can safely assume that our lieutenant seemed to have had one purpose, and once she fulfilled that, our murderer took care of her." He turned his attention to the corpse again and mused, "Who did this to you, my dear, and what did they want?"

"Maybe her purpose was to drive him here for some reason," DiNozzo suggested. "Car's registered to a Marine Second Lieutenant Andrea Dailey. Seat's pretty close to the wheel, so she was probably the last one driving."

"Get the car to the lab," Gibbs ordered with a nod as he headed toward their direction, leaving the still shaky-looking petty officer leaning against his parked motorcycle. "Tell Abby to confirm that Lt. Dailey was driving, and then focus on the passenger seat. McGee, go with the car. DiNozzo, Ziva, look into the lieutenant's background."

"But—" Ziva began to protest. Gibbs held a hand to stop her.

"Find out why she was giving a ride to someone who knows how to decapitate person. Maybe we'll get lucky and find out who it was."

"On it, Boss," DiNozzo replied, practically pushing a protesting Ziva back toward the van. She wrenched herself from him and turned and glared, but got into the vehicle without another word.

---

It was a few hours later that the pair got the opportunity to check up on the evidence that they had delivered to NCIS headquarters. "Ziva!" Abby Sciuto exclaimed, throwing her arms around the Mossad officer as soon as she stepped out of the elevator, DiNozzo following closely behind.

"Um, hello, Abby," she replied, throwing a confused expression over to DiNozzo, who just shrugged.

"Where's my hug, Abby?" he asked with a grin, earning him a punch in the arm instead. "Oww! What was that for?"

"You'll get your hug when you make the suggestion that breaks the case," she scolded. "Come look at this." She pointed them toward the Honda Civic, now open in the forensics garage. "Lt. Dailey was the last person to drive the car. There are, like, a bazillion fingerprints all over the steering wheel and the turn signal controls and everything else that you would normally touch while driving. I'm running the prints in the lab now."

"If you haven't run them, how are you so sure they're hers?" DiNozzo asked.

"Because, Tony, the passenger side was completely wiped clean. I mean, _completely_. There's not a single fingerprint anywhere, and I couldn't even get any trace with the vacuum. Someone did _not_ want us to know that he was there."

"What does this have to do with Ziva breaking open the case?" he asked, confused.

"Patience, Tony," Abby scolded. "McGee told me that the hazards were on when you found the car, and he said that Ziva said that whoever killed Lt. Dailey wanted her to be found. So, I realized that it was possible that _the killer_ turned on the hazard lights. I printed the button, and I got one single print, an index finger. It's running in the lab now."

"That's it?" DiNozzo asked with a frown. "One print? You don't even know it's not Dailey's!"

"Tony, you wound me," Abby said with a pout. "I thought you had more faith in me than that. I may not know who the print belongs to, but I know it's not Lt. Dailey. The print is _male_."

"You're sure?"

The forensic scientist shrugged. "I guess it could be a female with fingers that statistically are large enough to be male, but it's definitely not Dailey. She's got these small, dainty fingers, like a pianist or a hand model or—"

"Thanks, Abby," DiNozzo interrupted. "Keep us posted on that fingerprint. What've you got on the trunk?"

"_On_ the trunk, or _in_ the trunk?"

"In," he replied, figuring she'd give him both anyway.

"Good choice," she said with a nod. "Because there's nothing _on_ the trunk except some handprints that I'm pretty sure are Dailey's based on the size and some scratch marks near the lock. Nothing major, just the type of thing you'd expect from when someone's trying to unlock the trunk without paying attention to what they're doing. But _in_ the trunk, we got these." She led them over to a side table and picked up what looked like a small tackle box, labeled 'Property of HHMCB'. "I'm not exactly sure what this is," Abby admitted. "I still haven't run it through trace yet. I've been trying to figure out who HHMCB is. I mean, that's a lot of initials, but it's not really unheard of. I went to junior high school with a girl named Rose Robin Renee Winter Desiree Davis, so that's six initials."

"I wonder if they charge more to have things monogrammed with that many initials."

"Why would you want things monogrammed, anyway?" Abby asked Tony with a frown. "Are you worried that you're going to forget your initials until you look at your cufflinks or shirt pocket or—"

"I believe it is Henderson Hall Marine Corps Base," Ziva interjected. "Lt. Dailey was an environmental science officer for the base."

"That would make sense," Abby said with a nod, easily redirected. "She probably used the box to transport samples, but it's empty, so whatever she had, she already dropped it off. She also went to the Exchange yesterday and hadn't taken her bags out of her car yet." She pointed at two white plastic bags, both printed with 'MCX: Core Brands, Corps Values'. "I think she must have some sort of date planned, because she bought a bottle of champagne at the wine store and this really nice black Coach purse—well, really nice if you're into that sort of thing—and these strappy black heels, and well, this." She held up a piece of black lingerie that made DiNozzo's eyebrows rise into his hairline. "Receipt's marked yesterday at 1736, so she probably went shopping right after work. Hey, maybe whoever she had this date with—"

"Not likely, Abby," DiNozzo interrupted. "It would have to be a really bad date for him to want to cut her head off afterwards."

"Good point," she said, nodding. "Although there have been a few dates that I've been on that probably would have gone better if decapitation were involved."

Ziva cringed at the words, but Tony only grinned. "Are we going to have to have that talk about your choice in men again, Abby?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Loose Ends: Chapter 3**

* * *

"What've you got?" Special Agent Gibbs asked, heading into the squad room with his usual coffee in hand.

DiNozzo jumped up from his chair and turned on the plasma. "Second Lieutenant Andrea Dailey was an environmental science officer at Henderson Hall in Arlington. Most of her work seemed to be building inspections, which seems rather dull, since the buildings at Henderson Hall always passed with the highest scores."

"When she did have samples to be tested," Ziva jumped in, "she either took them to Bethesda or the Naval Medical Research Command in Silver Spring, Maryland. We checked her work logs and saw that she had samples to be tested at NMRC earlier today."

"Her sample box was empty in the trunk of her car and we checked at NMRC, where a Petty Officer Rachel Samuelson confirmed that Dailey made the drop," DiNozzo picked up smoothly, "so we know she was still alive at 0900 this morning. She must have run into somebody at NMRC who claimed to need a ride back to Henderson Hall."

"It would have been someone she trusted," Ziva added. "But I do not think it was someone she knew. If it was, he would not have felt the need to swipe down the car."

"_Wipe_ down the car, Ziva," DiNozzo interjected.

"It was probably someone in uniform," she continued, ignoring him. "According to Ducky, beheading is a lost art, so he seems to think our killer is probably older. No offense to Ducky, but I do not think it requires as much skill as he seems to think—"

"Ziva," Gibbs interrupted.

"Sorry, Gibbs. If Ducky is correct, we can assume he would have been dressed as an officer, someone with a high enough rank that she would have trusted him without question, but not high enough that she would have been intimidated. Maybe as high as lieutenant colonel."

"No Marines at NMRC," Gibbs pointed out, "only Navy. It would have been a commander, maybe a lieutenant commander. Lot of security in that building—gate checks, baggage inspection, ID badges. Ziva, DiNozzo, get the security cameras and talk to the guards, see if they remember a naval officer they've never seen before. McGee." He turned to the third agent's desk and frowned. "Where's McGee?"

"Sorry, Boss," McGee said, stepping out of the elevator. "I was down in the lab. Abby was running the fingerprints she got from the car. The ones on the driver's side were definitely Lt. Dailey's. Before she got a match on the print from the hazard light button, her monitor shorted out. I offered the run the print from up here."

Gibbs nodded. "Get on it," he ordered before walking away.

"Sure thing, Boss," McGee muttered to himself.

---

Half an hour later, Gibbs was back at his desk and McGee was still at his computer, trying to get a match on Abby's mystery fingerprint. "Got a match!" he declared triumphantly as the computer chirped. "Wait…" His voice was laced with disbelief, a frown on his face. "Boss, the print's blocked!"

"By who?" Gibbs asked.

"Working on it." McGee's fingers flew over his keyboard, trying to get around whatever firewall had just been erected. Right when he was beginning to think he was making progress, the computer shut itself off. Immediately, his phone began ringing, the light indicating an outside call. He frowned, reaching for the receiver as he bent down to restart the computer. "NCIS, Special Agent Timothy McGee."

"_Hello, Agent McGee_," a female voice replied. "_This is Lt. Ariadne Geist of the NSA. Please stop trying to hack into our files. We get a little territorial."_

"The NSA?" he echoed, trying to get a handle on what was going on and why he wasn't seeing the usual start-up sequence on his computer.

"_Yes, the NSA,"_ she replied with a sigh. "_National Security Agency? Maybe you've heard of us. Oh, and don't bother trying to restart your computer. I'll just turn it off again._"

"You turned off my computer?" he asked with a frown. "How is that even possible?" His mind was running through everything he knew about computers, which was quite a lot, and he couldn't figure out how someone on a base more than thirty minutes away could turn off a computer on a supposedly closed network.

"_I don't think you really want to know just what Big Brother is capable of_," she replied with a slight laugh. "_Is Special Agent Gibbs there? Yes, I see he is. I want to talk to him about this, too._"

"I'll transfer you—," McGee started.

"_No need, I'll just put myself on speaker."_ A second later, he heard the distinctive sound of the speaker phone. He stared the receiver in wonder as the voice came out from the phone's speakers. "_Agent Gibbs? This is Lt. Geist. Your team needs to back off on whatever you're working on."_

"And you are?" Gibbs asked as he rose from his desk to get closer to the speaker phone.

"_Lt. Ariadne Geist, NSA,"_ she replied. "_That fingerprint your team is trying to run is part of an investigation involving national security."_

"I wasn't aware the NSA was in the business of investigation," Gibbs replied. LT Geist didn't reply for a moment.

"_Back off, Gibbs_," she finally said.

"Don't take orders from you," he replied, his voice somehow light and defiant at the same time.

"_No, but you take orders from Director Vance, who takes orders from SecNav, who listens to what my people say, and we're saying, back off."_

"This mystery man who you don't want us to find killed a Marine officer, Lieutenant. We are not going to let that go in the name of national security."

There was another pause at the other end of the line. "_I'm coming down there_," Geist finally announced. "_I'll be there in forty-five minutes. In the meantime, stay away from that fingerprint. If you can promise me that she won't try anything, I believe the word is_ hinky_, I will reactivate Ms. Sciuto's computer monitor_."

"You have my word," Gibbs promised.

"_I'll hold you to that. I take the word of Marines seriously_." She hung up before either agent could reply.

"Oh, this is going to be fun," Gibbs murmured darkly.

---

Agent Tony DiNozzo and Officer Ziva David had just returned to their desks after dropping off the security video with Abby when the elevator doors opened again, revealing a tall, exotic looking Navy lieutenant, glossy black curls braided and pinned up, not unlike the hairstyle Ziva used when at a crime scene. Seeing her, Agent McGee stood from his desk, causing Tony and Ziva to look at each in confusion.

"Did we miss something?" DiNozzo asked.

"Apparently," Ziva replied as the lieutenant approached their desks.

"Special Agent McGee," the lieutenant said with a nod. "Lt. Ariadne Geist. Thank you for your cooperation."

"I wasn't aware I had a choice," the NCIS agent replied, earning a small smile from Geist.

"You didn't," she clarified. "I was just being polite." She turned toward Gibbs and nodded. "It's nice to meet you, Agent Gibbs. I'm sorry your attempts to read my officer jacket were unsuccessful. They have to be blocked, for national security reasons."

"Of course," Gibbs replied, taking a sip of coffee.

"I'm sure you enjoyed reading up on my husband and brother-in-law, though," she continued. "Although there's really not much exciting on either. Doctors and lawyers don't usually have the types of careers that former gunnery sergeants find interesting. If you had somehow managed to find my maiden name, you would have found out that my brother recently finished basic at Pendleton and is now stationed at Little Creek, although considering he's enrolled in the Marine Detachment at the Navy School of Music, you probably wouldn't have cared much about that anyway. Now that we have pleasantries out of the way, can you please bring me up to date on your case?"

"Whoa," DiNozzo murmured under his breath. "Who _is_ this chic?" Geist turned to him and raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

"Why don't you tell me?" Gibbs asked, leaning back in his chair. "Since you seem to know everything that's going on already?"

An exasperated look passed over Geist's features, but was gone as soon as it appeared. "Second Lieutenant Andrea Dailey was killed this morning sometime after 0930. You have her car in your lab, which is apparently where you found the fingerprint that got my attention in the first place. An Agent Anthony DiNozzo and Mossad Officer Ziva David," she turned back to face those two desks, raising an eyebrow slightly before turning back to Gibbs, "went out to the Forest Glen Annex, so I'm assuming they got the security footage from this morning and talked to the security guards about anyone unfamiliar." She shrugged. "That's all I know. There's not much I can do while driving."

"DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked, turning toward his field agent.

"Abby has the security video now, Boss," DiNozzo replied without missing a beat. "Security guards weren't any help. They said they always see a few Navy officers they're not familiar with, but nobody stood out. Who is this?"

Knowing he was there when she gave her name, Geist only said, "NSA. Did you get the footage from the security cameras in the parking lot as well as the lobby?"

"Yes," Ziva interjected. "We know how to do our jobs."

Geist ignored the jab. "The man you're looking for might not be dressed as a Navy officer. NMRC is housed in the same building as Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and is located on an Army base. He might have been dressed as an Army officer, either a major or lieutenant colonel. He would have approached her and asked her for a ride either on the walk to the parking lot or just by her car, not in the lobby of the building or anywhere else where they might have had an audience. He would not have wanted anybody to see them talking." She paused, studying the ID of 2ndLt Dailey on the plasma before continuing. "You can tell Ms. Sciuto that she's looking for Lt. Dailey talking to a Chinese man of average height. He would be wearing a name tag or name tape with some nondescript, easy to forget Asian name, such as Lee or Chang."

"You know him?" McGee blurted out in surprise. She looked over at him, the expression in her dark green eyes serious as she nodded.

"Then tell us his name," Gibbs said forcefully.

"I _can't_," she said with emphasis. "And that's not because of national security. I don't _know_ his real name. He changes aliases more often than he changes shirts. Unfortunately for those who work with him, that's not an exaggeration. Depending on the mission, personal hygiene is not always a priority for him." She paused again. "He's a chameleon. He can make himself fit in anywhere. He can speak English like he was born and raised in California, or he can have the accent of a Chinese citizen in the States for a business meeting. He can walk with military bearing just as easily as he can be slumped over in the streets, smelling like booze and vomit and begging for change. He wouldn't have stood out to the guards, because he would have acted like he had every right to be there, likely down to the military ID. The Chinese government has some very good forgers."

"You sound like you're familiar with him."

"I should be," she retorted. "We've been investigating him for years."

"The NSA?" DiNozzo asked, still not putting the pieces together of who this lieutenant was and what she was doing there. "I thought the NSA didn't investigate."

"The NSA, CIA, Naval Intelligence, MI-6, Mossad," she said, giving a slight nod to Officer David. "There's not an intelligence agency in the world that doesn't have a dossier on him. He's not exactly the type you would introduce to your sister."

"What is he doing in the States?" Gibbs asked. Geist hesitated before answering, trying to determine how much he should know.

"A few months ago, an agent was in China investigating him. We thought we covered our tracks and kept it from him, but I guess he found out. The fact that he's in DC, where this agent is currently stationed, is pretty worrisome for us. We want him found, Agent Gibbs. I've been told your team is the best outside of our little club; that's why I came here." She glanced up to the loft, where Vance was leaning against the railing. "Director Vance has promised your team's cooperation with this. If you help us out, you get the full credit on bringing him in and locking him up forever."

"We're not interested in bragging rights, Lieutenant," Gibbs said coolly, rising from his chair and walking to the other side of his desk, inches from Geist's position. She didn't flinch. "We want to make sure that Lt. Dailey's killer is brought to justice."

She didn't even blink as her eyes locked onto his. "That's what I'm offering you, Agent Gibbs. If this goes down any other way, nobody will ever know what happened to Lt. Dailey. Most people in the world don't know that this guy exists, and quite frankly, that makes the world a better place. People like him _shouldn't_ exist, and if we had our way, the world would go on in blissful ignorance. We like to keep our work—_everything_ about our work—in the shadows." She paused, her eyes still focused on Gibbs. "I'm not unsympathetic, Agent Gibbs. I _am_ a naval officer and belong to a family with both officers and enlisteds. I don't like to see any member of our armed forces killed without justice." She paused to let that sink in, and when she spoke again, her voice was low. "That's why I'm here. I can help you bring him down, but you're going to have to do it my way, or I'm leaving right now and you will never even _think_ the name Lt. Andrea Dailey again. Do you understand me?"

"I don't see as I have much of a choice."

She nodded once. "Good."


	4. Chapter 4

**Loose Ends: Chapter 4**

* * *

LT Geist had settled herself at McGee's computer, making him grab the chair from the extra desk on the other side of the partition to swing it next to her and simply watch as she worked. By the time he returned with the chair, Geist already had her ID in the computer and was logged onto what was probably her personal desktop, the settings saved on the small chip in the ID; without anything to do, or even a computer to do that nothing on, he felt even more like a probie than usual. He glanced over at his boss' desk, hoping for instructions on something else to do, only to see it empty. He had no idea where the older man could have gone—out for coffee, off to do something else, down to Autopsy to talk to Ducky. Or he could have gone up to Vance's office to yell at him about involving the NSA. Whatever it was, he wasn't in the bullpen.

"Our agent brought back several samples when she returned from China," the NSA agent began, her eyes still fixed on the screen and her hands literally flying over the keyboard. McGee frowned when he realized that her keystrokes weren't corresponding to a normal QWERTY keyboard; she was using her right hand and strongest fingers more than usual. He wondered if she was using a keyboard program designed to allow her to type faster, and was about to ask when DiNozzo spoke first.

"'She'?" the senior field agent asked with a frown.

"Yes, Agent DiNozzo. The United States intelligence community is rather progressive. We hire women these days. Sometimes we even let them out of the secretarial pool." Ziva chuckled slightly at her partner's expense, earning her a glare from over their desks. "We now have DNA, handwriting samples—really not that helpful, when you think about how quickly he changes personalities and possibly his writing style—and, of course, fingerprints, which is how Ms. Sciuto got my attention in the first place." She lapsed into silence, the beginnings of a frown forming on her face as her green eyes fixed on the computer screen. She murmured something in a language McGee didn't understand, her hands picking up from their already furious pace. He craned his neck to try to see what was on the screen, but at his angle and the speed she was working, he couldn't quite figure out what he was looking at.

"Something wrong?" McGee finally asked, earning him an almost absent shake of the head. Almost. He was beginning to doubt that LT Geist did anything absently.

"No," she said sharply. She realized how harsh that sounded and softened her tone before adding, "Just something unexpected." She didn't offer any further explanation before reaching for McGee's phone, dialing a number so familiar that she didn't even have to look at the phone as she dialed with her left hand, her right continuing to type.

"_Harold."_ At the voice, she finally stopped her typing to pick up the receiver and give the conversation her full attention. McGee leaned in closer to try to eavesdrop, but realized after the first few seconds how completely pointless that was. She was speaking in a foreign language that McGee didn't understand, different than what she had been muttering to herself. He was beginning to realize that there was more to this lieutenant than appeared at first glance. And that first glance was pretty impressive, from the long legs that the shapeless Navy khakis couldn't completely conceal to the—

"Okay, thanks," Geist finished in English before hanging up the phone. She turned to McGee, a blank expression on her face. He blinked a few times to bring himself back to the moment, and she frowned at him before returning to business. "I need you to go down to Ms. Sciuto's lab. She was sent some reference videos and photos via email just now, to be compared to the security footage from NMRC."

"Oh. Okay." He frowned briefly. He looked slightly confused, but he offered her a tight smile before heading for the elevator. Geist went back to her work, ninety-five percent focused on the computer screen in front of her, but yet completely aware that she was being watched. She raised her eyebrows slightly, but gave no other outward sign that she had noticed anything. She frowned at the screen, mentally kicking herself for getting so distracted by the case, by finally getting a lead on the man she had been tracking for well over a year, that she had forgotten her normal protocols. She back-traced to her original database, effectively erasing every hint that anybody—her or Agent McGee—had been there. McGee wasn't a bad hacker, but he didn't do this for a living. She did. McGee left a rather significant trail; she covered it up.

"That was nice work, sending away the probie," DiNozzo casually commented. She glanced over briefly to see him staring at her intently. A ghost of a smile crossed her lips before she returned her attention to the computer.

"He has degrees from Johns Hopkins and MIT. You were a jock and a frat boy. Don't get me wrong, I think The Ohio State University—and yes, I do know that it's _The_ Ohio State University, not just Ohio State University—is a fine school, but I know how to use the best tool for the job."

"I believe she just called you a tool, Tony."

"You're not supposed to know what that means, Ziva."

"I am not as clueless as you seem to think I am," she shot back.

"No, not clueless," DiNozzo agreed. "Just lacking a basic grasp of the English language." Ziva glared, but didn't say anything to counter his words. She muttered something under her breath in Hebrew as she picked up a pen and began making notes about the case thus far. Geist smiled slightly.

"You two remind me of… Never mind."

"Never mind?" DiNozzo asked.

"Yes, never mind. It means, don't worry about what I just said."

"I know what it means, Lieutenant. I just want to know what you were going to say."

"Are you always so annoying?" Despite the words, she had a slight smile on her face.

"Yes," Ziva jumped in. "He is."

"Thanks, Sweetcheeks."

"Any time, my little hairy butt," the Mossad officer replied sweetly. He glared briefly at her before returning his attention to Geist, his eyes narrowing further as he stared at the tall, exotic-looking lieutenant as if he would be able to figure out everything about her and what she was doing in their office if he just looked hard enough. So far, all he knew was that, in addition to being powerful enough to put Gibbs in his place without batting an eyelash, she was certainly not hard on the eyes, not with that black hair, those almond-shaped green eyes that left little question of Asian ancestry somewhere, and that tall, trim figure that made her one of the few women whom a uniform was actually flattering on.

"Do you always stare at the women you work with, Agent DiNozzo?" LT Geist asked dryly. Her eyebrow quirked again, a hint of a smile on her lips, but her eyes remained fixed on the screen in front of her. The records of her—and McGee's—searches now erased from the database, she went back to what she was doing before she remembered her protocols. There was quite a lot of intelligence out there to sift through; unfortunately, very little had anything to do with the man they were looking for. It was her job to figure out what was useful and what was excess clutter.

"Only the particularly attractive ones," he replied, not missing a beat. "Just ask Ziva. I've been staring at her for years." Geist smiled slightly before raising her left hand, her right taking over the entire keyboard, her typing only slowing slightly.

"Sorry to disappoint, Agent DiNozzo, but I'm married." The sun from the skylight reflected on the diamond and gold rings, sparkling slightly. She smiled before returning both hands to the keyboard.

Never one to miss the opportunity for a joke, DiNozzo just gave her his most charming smile. "Is it serious?"

Her smile widened, but her eyes remained fixed on McGee's computer monitor. "We signed for a mortgage together, so at this point, leaving and running off with you would be more trouble than it's worth," she said dryly. "Plus, he's a surgeon, so he has great earning potential, if he ever leaves the Navy." She grinned. "And in about twenty weeks, there'll be a little ghost around, so that just complicates things."

"Huh?"

"_Geist_ is German for _ghost_," Ziva informed him. It took DiNozzo a minute, but then he began to catch on.

"You're pregnant," he stated, staring openly at Geist's abdomen, as if trying to figure out how she could be hiding a fetus in there.

"About twenty weeks," she confirmed with a nod.

"Are you sure? Because you certainly don't look pregnant."

"Well, thanks, I guess," she said, a slightly puzzled expression flitting briefly over her face. "Jeremy keeps joking that I'm going to wake up one day and be massively huge. But believe me, I used to be a lot thinner. And if I'm not pregnant, that obstetrician at Bethesda owes me a pretty damn good explanation." Her smile faded as she fully processed the image she was viewing on McGee's computer screen. It was from one of the satellite videos that she had her contacts send to Abby Sciuto. The image of the middle-aged Chinese man in the center of the picture was no surprise; the tall, dark-haired woman he was talking to most certainly was. This time, when she spoke again, it was in a language that everybody in the room was able to understand: "Oh, _shit_."


	5. Chapter 5

**Loose Ends: Chapter 5**

_A/N: Sorry about the missed day yesterday--I was on-call at the hospital, and then when I got home I had the Ohio State-Michigan game to watch :) But enough with the excuses; here's your chapter._

* * *

Abby Sciuto took a long drink of her Caff-Pow as she studied the computer monitor in front of her, waiting patiently for the time required before she could begin the next step of DNA extraction. Confirming that the fingerprints on the driver's side of the Civic belonged to 2ndLt Andrea Dailey had been easy enough; just a picture of a fingerprint compared to the fingerprint the Marine Corps had on file for Dailey. The DNA was another story. Sure, she had multiple reference samples handy—the body in Ducky's morgue, the DNA in the Armed Forces Serum Repository—but the comparison was the easy part. Before she could even try to compare the red hair from the Civic to 2ndLt Dailey's DNA on file, she had to extract the DNA, which was a fairly long process involving precisely timed steps and a few hours in the lab's polymerase chain reaction machine.

Her timer beeped, indicating that it was time for the next reagent, and she all but bounced off her lab stool to begin the next step. She was just putting a new tip on the micropipette when the lab door slid open, revealing McGee. "Hi, Timmy," she said cheerfully. "You got everything straightened out up there?"

"Not quite," he said glumly. She raised her eyebrows, ready for an explanation. He sighed heavily and sat in her recently-vacated stool. "Lt. Geist, the NSA agent I told you about—"

"The one who blacked out my computer," Abby said promptly.

"Right. She showed up and immediately started spouting off stuff about the guy who killed Lt. Dailey. She was going head-to-head against Gibbs, and I hate to say it, but she was winning."

Abby snorted. "Nobody wins against Gibbs," she pointed out.

"Yeah, well, Lt. Geist was," he countered. "You should have seen it, Abby. She came in, and—," he cut himself off, remembering why he came down to the lab. "That's actually not what brings me here. She had one of her top-secret super-spy contacts send you some pictures and videos to compare to the security video from NMRC."

"Oh," she said, temporarily taken aback, but nothing keeps Abby down for long. "Okay. Let me add the PCR reagent and get the samples started. Then we'll have three hours and forty minutes to go through videos."

"I really hope they didn't send us three hours and forty minutes worth of videos," McGee replied. Abby glanced up from her micropipetting, her eyebrows raised.

"Got a hot date tonight or something?" she asked. His eyebrows, in turn, stitched together in confusion.

"Huh?"

She waved her free hand slightly. "You seem eager to get out of here."

"Just because I don't want to spend my entire evening staring at…whatever those people are sending us, doesn't mean that I have a date," he said patiently.

"Well, geez, Timmy, you don't need to get all defensive about it."

"What?" He'd never understand that woman. She gave him a wide grin and returned her attention to the DNA samples. He shook his head slightly. He'd _really_ never understand her.

A few more minutes of listening of heavy metal music with the bass turned up loud enough to send the floor vibrating later, Abby neatly returned the micropipette to the rack, placed the small microcentrifuge tubes into the PCR machine, and pressed a few buttons to start the program before turning back to McGee and giving him another grin. "Okay," she said, a tone of determination in her voice. "The pictures and videos."

She went to her computer to check her email, humming slightly to the sounds of the music playing through the speakers. McGee heard her chuckle quietly as she figured out which message it was. "Gmail," she said dryly. "Original. I love the email address, though—_4MizSciuto_ at gmail dot com."

"They created an account just to send you an attachment?" McGee asked with a frown. She turned to him and gave him a look like he was the dumbest man alive, and for a second, that's how he felt.

"Well, duh, McGee," she said impatiently. "Why not? It takes, what, thirty seconds to set up a new gmail account, and then you close it and never use it again. And I'm guessing the NSA or whoever it was who sent this put up all sorts of firewalls and false leads that it would be impossible to trace."

"Why would we need to trace it?" McGee asked, again feeling like the slow kid in the back of the class. "We know who sent it. And if there are any questions about it, we can have Lt. Geist verify it."

"_We_ wouldn't be the ones tracking it, Timmy," Abby said patiently, her attention already focused on the screen as she quickly clicked through the attached files. "There's a big, bad, scary guy out there, and judging by the way Lt. Geist and all of her top-secret spy friends are acting, he probably knows that someone's onto him by now." McGee shuddered involuntarily at the memory of 2ndLt Dailey's severed head, but wisely kept his mouth shut. There was no need reminding Abby of that fact, too. She got clingy enough as it is about her friends when she thought they were in danger.

"Now, here's the security video that Tony and Ziva brought back from NMRC," Abby said, interrupting McGee's train of thought. She zoomed in on the grainy footage of a woman who appeared to be Second Lieutenant Andrea Dailey, talking to an average-sized middle-aged Asian man in an Army Combat Uniform. "Based on when she dropped the samples off at the lab to be tested, I checked the videos for half an hour in either direction, and this is the only person Lt. Dailey spoke to outside of the building itself."

"Lt. Geist said that we're looking for an average looking Asian man, probably in a Navy or Army uniform, with an easily forgotten Asian surname." Abby chuckled slightly at that.

"It's like the fat jokes that kids used to tell in middle school," she quipped. "You know, 'Billy Bob's so fat he's got more chins than a Chinese phonebook.'" She grinned again before returning her attention to the video. "Unfortunately, the name is on the right side of the chest. With the way our guy is standing, all we can see is the left, which just says 'U.S. Army'. I checked for other views, but couldn't get an angle."

"It's okay," McGee said absently, staring at the video. "Army uniforms have Velcro name tapes. He would have disposed of the name already. Or maybe even the whole uniform."

"Good point. So the name is irrelevant. So let's focus on the face." She didn't have to say what she was doing as she slowed the video down, almost to a frame-by-frame view. McGee knew that the best chances of getting a hit on the facial recognition software would come from a full frontal view. She frowned. "He's almost always in silhouette. This is probably the best view I can get of him." She had the video frozen on a three-quarters view of the unknown man's face, and with a few clicks, the computer inserted the fixed points and the image flew to the adjoining screen, where Abby entered it into the database. She turned to him. "This could be awhile, if we even get a hit."

"Well, we can compare it to the pictures Lt. Geist had sent to us," he said helpfully, realizing after he said it how stupid it sounded. Of course that was what they were going to do next. To her credit, Abby didn't point this out, just smiled indulgently and brought up the first of the videos.

"Comparing it to the videos," she said in an almost-mocking tone, as if he had issued and command and she was confirming it. He frowned slightly, but turned his attention to the screen.

"It looks like a satellite video," he said after a few minutes of silent watching. The man, who by first glance appeared to be the same as the one in the video with 2ndLt Dailey, was walking down a fairly busy street in non-descript business wear. Everyone around him also appeared to be Asian. "Lt. Geist specifically said that this guy is Chinese," he finally said. "Do you think the satellite is fixed over China?"

"No way to tell," Abby said thoughtfully. "They didn't leave any identifying coordinates on the video." She pointed to the corner, where there would usually be the satellite's information and the latitude and longitude it was scanning. There was nothing there. "The writing on the signs is all in Chinese, but he could be in a Chinatown somewhere."

"Yeah," he said thoughtfully, still studying the video. The man wasn't doing anything exciting, just walking down the street, briefcase in hand. "Is it the same guy?"

Without saying anything, Abby captured a shot of the man's face, and with the same few keystrokes, sent it over to the next screen, where it instantly pinged a confirmation. "Yes," she said confidently. "Either that, or someone has an evil twin."

"Let's hope not," he said with a sigh. This case was complicated enough, with murdered Marine lieutenants and living Navy lieutenants with shaky backgrounds and Chinese men who knew how to neatly decapitate a person. "What else do we have on the videos?"

They fast-forwarded through the rest of the current one, seeing nothing other than the man walking. In the next, they saw him entering a building just as nondescript as everything else about him. The next few videos were just as unenlightening, until they realized a recurring theme. "Is this the same woman as the last video?" McGee asked, pointing to the tall figure, thick wavy hair held in a loose bun at the nape of her neck. Abby frowned.

"I think so," she said thoughtfully. "Curly hair isn't that common among Chinese women, is it?"

"And she seems quite a bit taller than average," McGee added. "She never shows her face to the satellite, though."

"Which is odd," Abby pointed out. "I mean, you almost expect it on security videos, because you gotta figure a smart bad guy is going to know where the cameras are located and is going to avoid looking at them, but there's no way of knowing where a satellite is or when it's going to be passing overhead." She frowned. "Do you think she's significant?"

"I don't know," McGee replied. "She's in this video and the last. Maybe she's just a daughter or a girlfriend or something."

"Or maybe a co-conspirator," Abby added. "Maybe I can get a reflection off a window or something and get a look at her face."

"There are still two more videos," he pointed out. "Maybe we'll get a better view in one of them."

"Good thinking." She brought up the next video, which again showed the man in question talking to the mystery woman, but like before, she managed to keep her face from the satellite.

It was the final video where they finally got something. As with the others, it started with the man walking down the street. He approached a building, just as nondescript as the others, but not the same building. Before passing through the door, he turned slightly, as if responding to someone calling for his attention. A few seconds later, the woman strode into view, and as before, all they see at first was the top of her head. The two appeared to be arguing about something, body language stiff. In the last few seconds of the video, the woman shifted uncomfortably, looking up toward the sky in exasperation, and McGee startled at what he saw—or, rather, _who_. Even with the slightly grainy quality of the enhanced satellite video, he knew who he was looking at. He pulled out his phone and looked at it for a moment, knowing the call he had to make and knowing he wouldn't enjoy it, before his eyes returned to the screen. "You recognize her?" Abby asked, confused.

"I should," he replied, still staring at the screen. "That's Lt. Ariadne Geist. The woman sitting upstairs at my computer."

* * *

_A/N 2: This is specifically for the person who left an anonymous review signed 'Someone looking for a good fic': I have nothing against state schools; I _am_ an Ohio State alum (way to go to my Buckeyes yesterday, by the way--seventh victory in a row against The State Up North!). The purpose of that line was not to make DiNozzo look like an idiot and McGee to look brilliant; rather, it was to demonstrate that McGee was being sent down to the lab because he has extensive training with computers, and DiNozzo is an experienced field agent with other talents, which LT Geist will be taking advantage of later in the story. I fully disagree with anyone, of any level of writing (and this includes show writers) who feels the need to bash anybody to make another character look good. I did not mean anybody offense by that line, or any other line that I write, and I'm sorry that that didn't come across very well._


	6. Chapter 6

**Loose Ends: Chapter 6**

**

* * *

**

Despite having spent his formative years in the United States Marine Corps—or maybe, _because_ he spent his formative years in the United States Marine Corps—Leroy Jethro Gibbs didn't take orders well. Which was why the encounter in the bullpen with Lieutenant Ariadne Geist sent him right to Director Leon Vance's office with a decidedly unhappy expression on his face.

"Who is she?" he demanded as he burst into the inner office, the protests of Cynthia abruptly cut off as he slammed the thick metal door closed. Vance glanced up from his paperwork with only a mildly interested look on his face.

"Hello to you, too, Agent Gibbs," the director said dryly. "Please, come into my office. It's not as if I'm busy."

"Cut the crap, Leon," Gibbs snapped, glaring down at the still-seated director. "Lt. Ariadne Geist. In my bullpen. Who the hell is she, and why the hell is she here?"

"NSA. Just like she told you." Gibbs just glared, and for a long minute, the two continued to stare at each other, neither as much as blinking. Just as Gibbs expected he would, Vance was the first to look away, his eyes falling onto a folder sitting closed on the corner of his desk before returning to Gibbs. "You don't have that kind of clearance," he finally said. Gibbs snorted.

"Then read me in." Again, Vance didn't say anything, the silent battle of the wills continuing.

"Lock the door," the director ordered, his voice low. He grabbed the thin folder and the remote to the plasma screen and rose from his desk, heading toward the conference room table.

Gibbs reached for the folder upon taking a seat at the table, but Vance stopped him, his hand keeping the document firmly in place. "Lieutenant Ariadne Geist," he said, ignoring Gibbs' glare as he turned the plasma screen from its mute display of ZNN to the official Department of the Navy photo of the lieutenant currently seated downstairs at McGee's desk, black hair neatly braided, an almost knowing smile decorating her soft features, making her look a hell of a lot less intimidating than when she had been glaring Gibbs down in the middle of the squad room for all to see. She had the quill and lightning bolt device of Navy Cryptology—the same as had been on the left collar of her khaki uniform when she arrived at NCIS—above the two solid stripes on the sleeves of her service uniform jacket and was working on a third row of ribbons—not bad for a lieutenant, especially one who likely spent most of her time staring at a computer screen. "Currently stationed at the NSA. A little more than three months ago, became the Chinese division chief in the Language Analysis department."

"And before that?"

"Not even I have the clearance for that." Vance opened up the file and slid it toward Gibbs. Even the first page, the Officer Record Brief, had black-outs. The supervisory field agent flipped idly through the few other pages—far too few for a full lieutenant—and found more black lines than legible ones. "All I can tell you is that she graduated from the United States Naval Academy seven and a half years ago. Promoted to lieutenant junior grade and lieutenant below the zone, both times. And before you ask, no, I don't know what she did to get that kind of recognition. She was completely off the grid until she was suddenly registered with the Wounded Warrior Battalion at Bethesda four years ago."

"She was wounded in combat."

"That is what the Wounded Warrior Battalion is for," Vance said dryly. Gibbs frowned and flipped back to the Officer Record Brief, where LT Geist's DN photo was attached.

"No Purple Heart," he finally said, pointing at the picture. Vance didn't appear bothered by that fact.

"Could be a non-battle injury," he replied. "Whatever it was, she was transferred to the NSA after a couple months in WWB."

"Thought you said you didn't know what she did before taking over as the Chinese division chief."

"I don't," Vance replied firmly. "There's a ten month gap in her professional timeline, and no matter who I ask, they all give me the same run-around about that."

"Intelligence work?"

"No doubt," Vance said dryly. "She has a background that's made for intelligence. Maxed out on specialty pay for foreign language speakers—she has six foreign language certifications: Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Greek, German, and Arabic. She's never qualified for anything less than Expert on any weapon she's attempted, and let's face it: she has a face for espionage." Gibbs grunted at that: it was a double standard, but one that was widely recognized. The best men in the intelligence world were the ones who were nondescript, those who were easily forgotten. The best women were the ones who could turn heads, but were easily written off as another pretty face. Jen Shepard had been perfect for undercover work; with her flame-red hair, she never failed to be noticed, but only once had gathered enough suspicion to be made as an undercover agent. Ariadne Geist had it all—brains, talent, and looks. And with her obviously mixed-race background, Gibbs was sure that there were only a few places the world where the right make-up couldn't make her blend in perfectly. "I would be willing to lay high stakes on the bet that the ribbons she's wearing in that photo are the only ones she's authorized to wear, but aren't the only ones she's earned."

Just by glancing at the blacked-out dossier, Gibbs agreed with that assessment, but didn't say anything, continuing to stare at the DN photo of the lieutenant in her service uniform, that almost-smug and knowing smile on her face. _"I'm sure you enjoyed reading up on my husband and brother-in-law, though."_ Geist's words rang in his head, almost as if they were teasing him, mocking him with something he should know but couldn't quite figure out. "Her family," he finally stated out loud. "What do we have on them?"

Vance frowned at the question, but hit a few buttons controlling the plasma screen anyway. "Husband is Lieutenant Jeremias Geist, MD," he finally said, a new Department of the Navy photo now displayed on the screen. Unlike his wife, Dr. Geist had an expression on his face that was a cross between stern and completely blank, like somebody told him that officers shouldn't smile in their official pictures, and he listened. There were two flags in the background of his photo, the easily-recognized American flag and one Gibbs only knew from experience to be of National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. His sleeves also bore two solid stripes, but instead of the quill-and-lightning bolt of his wife's uniform, his had the leaf and acorn of the Medical Corps. "He's a fifth year general surgery resident at Bethesda," Vance continued. "Submitted an application with the Navy's Graduate Medical Education board for a fellowship in Trauma and Critical Care. Doesn't know yet whether he got it or not."

"But you do."

Vance gave a dismissive snort. "I don't care enough to find out. Believe it or not, my job keeps me busy enough that I don't have time to check the postings of every Navy physician."

Gibbs ignored the sarcasm, staring at the dark-haired, dark-eyed man on the screen as if _he_ could tell him who exactly they were dealing with, who this was who decapitated a Marine lieutenant as easily as if it were just another day at the office. "Anything in his background?"

"What's your gut telling you, Gibbs?" Vance asked as he pulled a new toothpick out of his pocket and carefully unwrapped it from its plastic wrapper before sticking it between his teeth. He rolled it around in his mouth several times before continuing. "You thinking the doctor had an affair and killed her to hide the evidence from his wife?"

"No," Gibbs said bluntly, his eyes still unwavering from the plasma screen. "I doubt anything gets by Lt. Ariadne Geist. Especially an affair with a Marine lieutenant. And surgical precision or not, I doubt this guy has decapitation in him." He waved at the plasma screen again and waited for Vance to speak.

He didn't have to wait long. "Geist graduated from the Naval Academy the year before his wife," the NCIS director said. "Majored in chemistry, graduated in the top third of his class, star forward on the varsity soccer team. Went onto the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and again graduated in the top third of his class. All of his commanding officers couldn't stop singing his praises in his FitReps. Not a blemish in his record."

"Perfectly clean-cut naval officer," Gibbs murmured. He was missing something; he could feel it. _"I'm sure you enjoyed reading up on my husband and brother-in-law, though."_ Vance was right about her background and training, and part of working in the intelligence community was knowing when to speak and what to say. Just from that one short conversation in the bullpen, he got the impression that LT Geist never said anything unintentionally. "There's another Geist."

Vance nodded as he pressed another button, another picture appearing on the plasma screen. "Lieutenant Hayden Geist," he declared. The family resemblance between the two men was there, if you knew to look for it, but wasn't instantly obvious. Hayden Geist had distinctly more Asian features, his black hair appearing professionally cut and styled at a length that was just about as long as was acceptable for a naval officer, unlike his brother's hair, which looked like he found a low setting on a beard trimmer and used that to keep his hair at the right length. He had almost a smirk on his face, as if he was finding something humorous about taking that picture, or the Navy in general. "He was some hot-shot Beltway lawyer and Georgetown Law professor before he decided to follow in his brother and sister-in-law's footsteps and take a commission to the Navy, into the JAG Corps. Graduated from college at sixteen and law school at nineteen, spent a year as a clerk in the Supreme Court before joining one of the most well-respected law firms in the District and bringing in somewhere around six hundred dollars an hour. Decided to pay it forward or some such thing and started teaching at Georgetown Law in all the spare time I'm sure he had. His bosses in both jobs wrote letters of recommendation when he decided to join the Navy, so I doubt he went on a homicidal rage brought on by second-guessing his career choices." Gibbs rolled his eyes at Vance's sarcasm. "Would have been pretty hard for him to do, too, because according to his orders, he has about a week left of Naval Justice School before he takes his first assignment at Quantico."

"Quite a change," Gibbs murmured. "Most JAG lawyers leave the Navy and then get the high-paying jobs, not the other way around."

"Sense of duty," Vance replied. "That's how he explained it in his application. Military runs in the family: father was in the German army before immigrating, as was _his_ father. Maternal grandfather was a colonel in the Army, brother and sister-in-law are in the Navy, sister and brother-in-law in the Air Force. Felt it was his place. And it's not like he needed the money." The toothpick made another trip from one side of the mouth back to where it started. "Right after he took his commission, he married one of his former pupils from Georgetown, Nichole Bradford Geist." With a few presses of buttons, the picture of Mrs. Geist's dependent ID card appeared on the screen, and Gibbs did a double-take at the image. "She's old money from somewhere in New England and took her husband's place at his firm when he left for the Navy." Vance glanced over at the supervisory special agent and frowned at the expression on Gibbs' face. "You know her?"

"No," Gibbs said bluntly, remembering the carefully blank expression that had been on LT Geist's as she studied the image of 2ndLt Andrea Dailey on the plasma screen downstairs in the bullpen. He was pretty sure she had been thinking the exact same thing he was currently thinking.

With their green eyes, red hair, subtle freckles, and youthful features, Andrea Dailey and Nichole Bradford Geist looked enough alike to mistake one for the other at first glance.

He just couldn't figure out if this meant that the case had become much simpler, or infinitely more complicated.

And then his phone rang.


	7. Chapter 7

**Loose Ends: Chapter 7**

**

* * *

**

Tony DiNozzo snuck a glance at the woman sitting at the desk to his right and frowned slightly. He didn't like feeling left out of the loop, and that was exactly what he had been, from the moment he had walked into the bullpen to see her standing there staring down Gibbs and winning.

_Nobody_ stared down Gibbs and won. He was sure that this meant she had some sort of super power, and was spending most of his time trying to figure out what it was. He was pretty sure that being just plain intimidating wasn't a super power, but if he was wrong, she certainly had that qualification.

There was something familiar about her, but he couldn't quite figure it out. He knew that he had never met her before—she didn't exactly have the face of someone you met once and forgot. No, it was something else, something that was more like déjà vu than anything real.

And then he figured out, and suddenly it was like he was glancing into a hotel pool, watching another dark-haired beauty swimming laps while hearing his dead partner's voice teasing him about being intimidated by a woman.

She was just like Ziva. Well, just like Ziva would be, if Ziva knew how to use a computer.

"Can I help you with something, Agent DiNozzo?" LT Geist was trying to keep her voice light, but he could hear the underlying tension. He wondered just what it was that she had found on her computer—well, McGee's computer—a few minutes ago that changed her previous relaxed and confident manner into one of someone who appeared ready to attack—or defend herself—on a moment's notice.

Another thing she had in common with Ziva.

"No, not really," he said casually. "I was just wondering if you found anything good on the McGeek's computer. Something that can be used to blackmail him later."

Geist smiled thinly at that. "Somehow, Agent DiNozzo, you don't strike me as the blackmailing type. You seem more like the type of guy who finds something out and uses it to tease incessantly. Blackmail requires you to keep something to yourself."

Ziva chuckled at the words. "She has you staked, Tony."

"_Pegged_, Ziva. The expression is, she has you _pegged_. Staking is something you do to vampires. You'll have to talk to Abby about that."

That comment earned him another small and slightly distracted smile from LT Geist. She appeared to be ready to say something, but the ringing of DiNozzo's phone interrupted her. He glanced down at the caller ID and recognized the extension of Abby's lab. "Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo. How can I help you today?" the senior field agent asked into the phone. He saw Ziva roll her eyes in his peripheral vision, and glanced up to give her a wide grin.

"_Hey, Tony_," McGee answered, his voice somewhere between wary and excited. "_Abby and I were going through those videos that Lt. Geist has someone email her. The guy Lt. Dailey was talking to in the parking lot at NRMC is definitely the same guy that the NSA or whoever is watching this guy sent._"

"Okay, thanks, McGiggle," DiNozzo said. He was about to hang up with McGee's voice stopped him.

"_Wait, Tony. That's not all._" He paused and waited for the junior field agent to continue, which he did. "_The pictures are definitely from somewhere in Asia, probably China, based on the—_"

"McRamble-On," DiNozzo interrupted. "If there's a point, I suggest you get to it."

"_Right. Sorry, Boss. Tony. Sorry, Tony_." DiNozzo smiled thinly at McGee's slip, but didn't call him out on it. He'd use that to tease the probie later. "_There's a woman in several of the videos, a co-worker of this guy, from the looks of it. In the first few, we really couldn't see anything of her except for her back or a poorly angled shot—_"

"What did I just say about getting to the point, Probie?"

"_This is important, Tony_." DiNozzo could practically see how flustered McGee was getting, and smirked slightly. He caught Ziva's eye and grinned; she rolled her eyes and returned her attention to her computer screen, where she was still looking into Dailey's background, but not before he saw the beginnings of a smile tugging at her lips. He returned his attention to the conversation on the phone when he remembered McGee was still talking. "_The woman in the videos… It's Lt. Geist. It's obvious just by looking at it, but we compared it to the photo on file, and there's no question about it._"

"Okay," DiNozzo said slowly, fighting to keep from looking over at Geist.

"_Tony, this is serious._" If his words weren't so true—and so serious—DiNozzo would have made fun of him for acting so serious. "_Abby and I tried to look into Geist's record, to figure out what she was doing in China and why she was working with this guy, but we couldn't find anything. At all. With the exception of her DN photo and a notation that she's assigned to the NSA, there's no record of a Lt. Ariadne Geist anywhere. No Navy records. No education records. No medical records. No fingerprints or DNA on file. Abby even checked the civilian databases—there's not a single Ariadne Geist who owns or leases in the tri-state area, no cars registered in that name, not even a driver license. I don't know who that is on my computer, Tony, but there is no Ariadne Geist."_

DiNozzo froze at the words, his mind spinning as he tried to figure out what it meant. As he saw it, there were two options: the first was that the woman whose fingers were currently flying over McGee's keyboard was only posing as a Navy officer, with a very flimsy cover identity that didn't hold up to even the most rudimentary check. In that case, the questions they had to ask were who she was, what she was doing in NCIS, and what her connection was with the man who killed 2ndLt Dailey.

The second option was that she really was LT Ariadne Geist, a Navy officer, and that her background was so confidential that whatever agency she had worked for had put painstaking measures into keeping her hidden.

He didn't know what option scared him more.

"_Tony! Are you even listening to me?_"

"'Course I am, Probilicious. What do you expect me to do about it? Everything's on your computer, remember?" Ziva looked up at the comment and the forced light tone it was spoken in and frowned slightly. His eyes quickly darted down and to the right, to the top drawer of the desk. She nodded almost imperceptibly her understanding.

"_Oh,_" McGee said, his voice almost flat with realization. "_She's still on my computer, isn't she?_"

"Yeah, Probie. _That_ program."

His words were met with a brief period of silence. "_Okay,_" McGee finally said. "_I've already told Gibbs, so—_"

"Don't worry about, McWorrywart," DiNozzo interrupted. "I'll figure something out." He hung up the phone before McGee could say anything else and feigned a thoughtful expression as he reached for the top drawer of his desk, where he kept his Sig. "Ziva, McGee was asking about this one… computer thing. Don't honestly know what he was talking about, but have you seen—." He stopped talking and straightened abruptly at the _whooshing_ sound, followed by a dull thud. His eyes widened as he registered the knife buried into the partition by his desk to the hilt.

"Don't even think about it, Agent DiNozzo." LT Geist's voice wasn't necessarily cold, but it certainly wasn't warm. He slowly turned to see her holding a small .22 in her left hand, pointing it directly at him. "That was a warning shot. I don't miss. Especially at this range." Another loud _click_, this time from the opposite direction, told DiNozzo without looking that another weapon had joined the standoff. This time, the smile on Geist's face _was_ cold. "I'd suggest putting that away, Officer David. I'm an excellent shot, have _very_ fast reflexes, and _will_ kill your partner if you fire on me."

The three of them sat there, none moving a muscle, for an indeterminate length of time. "Why'd you do it?" DiNozzo finally asked. Geist quirked an eyebrow, her left arm still not wavering.

"I was doing my job," she stated. "Sometimes we do things we don't like to for our jobs. Things that are going to hurt ourselves and other people. You understand that, don't you, Agent DiNozzo?" He glared as the words hit their intended mark. Her expression didn't change.

"Ziva, put the gun down." All three glanced up to see Gibbs descending the stairs, appearing as calm and collected as he would have had he not walked into an old-fashioned show-down in the middle of his bullpen. "You, too, Lt. Geist." Ziva reluctantly returned her weapon to her desk drawer; a minute later, Geist followed suit, slipping the tiny pistol into an ankle holster that had been entirely hidden under the khaki uniform pant leg. Again, silence fell over the bullpen, and again, it was Gibbs who broke it, directing his next statement at LT Geist. "He's after you."

"Yes."

"And rightfully so."

"Yes."

"You're the operative who tracked him."

"Yes."

"He deserve it?"

Her lips quirked into an ironic smile. "Hell, yes."

"Then let's get this guy. And this time, don't leave anything out."


	8. Chapter 8

**Loose Ends: Chapter 8**

* * *

"He's a computer engineer by training," LT Ariadne Geist was saying, sitting on the corner of Agent McGee's desk. The NCIS team was gathered around her—Gibbs sitting behind his desk, Agent McGee standing against the partition behind Gibbs with Abby Sciuto standing close to him, Agent DiNozzo and Officer David both half-sitting and half-leaning against DiNozzo's desk and glaring in Geist's direction. Even Director Vance was leaning against the railing of the loft. She was ignoring most of them, her attention focused on Gibbs and Gibbs alone. "He started his career working for the Chinese equivalent of IBM, but it didn't take the government long to realize that they were wasting his talents. He started working for the Intelligence Directorate as a cryptographer about a decade ago. He specializes in American codes, as much as one could specialize in such a thing."

"He any good?"

She quirked an eyebrow in Gibbs' direction. "Good enough that we sent a cryptographer to China to keep an eye on him," she said dryly. He waved for her to continue. "He was trained by the People's Liberation Army to be both a scholar and a killer."

"The Chinese version of you," DiNozzo said, somewhat snidely. She rolled her eyes.

"In a way, yes," she replied bluntly. "His work was very sensitive, and the Chinese government was—is—very protective of it. That includes bending to his every whim to keep him happy, and some of his whims are rather extraordinary. He took to power much in the same way Hitler did. He was very easily drunken by it."

"Interesting analogy." That was Abby Sciuto who had spoken, and LT Geist frowned slightly in her direction, still not knowing what to make of the Goth forensic scientist. Obviously, she was not one to be underestimated—she had identified Geist in the satellite videos—but the unconventional government employee seemed rather antagonistic toward the lieutenant, and Geist could not figure out why.

"He was very paranoid, as most members of the intelligence community are, world-wide." She didn't miss the teasing nudge DiNozzo gave Officer David, nor the glare it earned him in reply. "Over the years, we had recruited some of his subordinates—most very low-ranking—and he discovered each one, and killed each in the same manner."

"Decapitation." It was Gibbs who had spoken that word, and Geist nodded in the affirmative.

"Decapitation," she echoed. "He has a specific sword that he likes to use. He's very set in his ways, as I'm sure you can imagine."

"So instead of recruiting another subordinate, they sent you."

"Not quite," she corrected the team leader. "They sent me because he got too close." She frowned, trying to figure out how much of the history of the case was necessary for them to know. "I'm a cryptographer," she reminded them. "I majored in math and computer science at the Naval Academy and have a Master's in cryptography from MIT." She gave a slight nod in McGee's direction. "And that's in addition to the training I can't tell you about. Naval Intelligence began to get hints that the Chinese might know what we were doing in the Pacific—submarines would be followed, Chinese jets flying over aircraft carriers, that sort of thing—and we began to realize that they were breaking our codes. We would change them, and they would break them again. Either he was better than we previously thought, or he had someone working on the inside."

"You were sent to find out which."

She nodded at Gibbs. "That's right. I'm not going to give you details on the mission, but it was long-term. I asked for a furlough nine months in. After a month of prep, they gave it to me. I was supposed to return after three months."

"How long ago was that?"

"Five months."

"Why didn't you go back?" DiNozzo asked with a frown. Geist rolled her eyes as she turned to face him.

"Because I'm pregnant," she said slowly, "and it's a little bit difficult to run around being a spy while growing another human being." She rolled her eyes again and returned her attention to Gibbs. "When I didn't come back, he must have gotten suspicious."

"And understandably so." Geist snapped her head toward Ziva, surprised at the harsh tone the words were spoken in. Or maybe she shouldn't have been surprised, considering the way the she saw the Mossad liaison looking at DiNozzo. Deirdre, her former partner, used to tease her that for a spy, she sure was lousy at reading people, but it didn't take a trained intelligence to know that Ziva David was trying unsuccessfully to hide the way she felt for her own partner. That same partner who, less than half an hour before, Geist pointed her throw-away at. No wonder she was pissed. "That was irresponsible of you."

"Getting pregnant?" Geist scoffed. "What was I supposed to do, not have sex with my husband after being gone for ten months? That would have gone over _real_ well."

Gibbs hid a smile at the sarcastic words behind his hand. "How'd he find out it was you?"

Geist turned to face him again and shrugged her right shoulder. "There's currently a room full of people at CIA headquarters working on answering that exact question."

"Wait. Back up." They all turned to face DiNozzo, now wearing a confused expression on his face. "How do we know that he knows that Lt. Geist was the one who spied on him in China?"

Gibbs turned to the NSA agent. "Do you want to tell them, or should I?"

She reluctantly stood and made her way to the other side of McGee's computer and activated the computer screen, bringing up a picture. "Meet Nichole Bradford Geist. She's a lawyer at Nolan and Revere in DC. She's also my brother-in-law's wife of four months."

"She looks just like Lt. Dailey," Abby blurted out. Geist turned to her and nodded solemnly.

"That she does," she said.

"So this mystery Chinese guy—"

"The name he used when I was working with him was Colonel Ye Xuanze," Geist interrupted.

"Okay. So this Colonel Xuanze—"

"Ye," the lieutenant interrupted. "Colonel Ye."

"Good," DiNozzo replied. "That's easier to say. So he found a Marine lieutenant at NMRC who resembles your sister-in-law—"

"Brother-in-law's wife."

He threw his hands up in exasperation at the interruptions, but Geist saw the beginnings of a smile on Ziva's face. "Your brother-in-law's wife, then. How do we know it's not a coincidence?"

"Since when did we believe in coincidences, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked in reply before turning back to Geist.

"It's how he works," Geist informed them. "Threaten the family…make good on those threats. It's an amazingly effective way of controlling people."

"Is your family in danger?" Gibbs voice was low and intense, and she frowned slightly at the tone before remembering what she had read in his dossier about his first wife and daughter. She nodded slowly.

"They are," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. She tried not to think about it before, tried not to let it distract her, but now that she had been forced to vocalize it, she was doing all that she could to keep from being paralyzed with fear. It was one thing to put her own life at risk, but her family didn't deserve this. And yet, part of her knew that this would happen when she let Jeremy back into her life. She cleared her throat and forced herself at the task at hand. "My parents live in San Diego and my brothers are spread throughout the country. The only one in the vicinity is my younger brother, at Little Creek. He's on base and surrounded by Marines; I think he's fine." She frowned. "My father-in-law lives outside Philly, only about an hour and a half away—"

"An hour and a half to Philly?" DiNozzo interrupted with a frown. "Maybe if you drive like Ziva."

A very brief grin flitted across her features. "My husband drives a Porsche and isn't afraid of speeding tickets. It's an hour and a half _with_ traffic." She frowned again. "Hayden, my brother-in-law, is still at the Naval Justice School; again, he's on base. And Captains Luke and Aubrey Christopher, my sister-in-law and her husband, are also on base—Kfar Sirkin Air Force Base, in Israel. I think they're okay."

"Colonel Ye got to Lt. Dailey on a base," Gibbs pointed out. She made a face at the reminder, but nodded in agreement.

"I doubt we need to worry him about him getting to Israel, but I'll give both Hayden and Tomas a call, tell them to be on the lookout," she promised. "To be honest, I'm a lot more worried about Anton and Nichole. Neither of them is in a protected position, and neither is prepared to be on the defensive."

"We can get agents to keep eyes on them," Gibbs offered.

"No offense to your agents, but I'd rather get them in fortified positions. Someone guarding them when they're on guarded bases is better than just having someone guard them. Anton will agree—probably gladly, as it would get him out of the classroom and away from teenagers, and onto a military base where he could grill someone who can't escape about military history—but I don't think Nichole will. Leaving work is one thing for a high school teacher, but not really an option for her. Not at four hundred dollars an hour, but I'll try." She reached back for McGee's phone, but Gibbs' voice stopped her.

"And your husband?"

She froze in place. "_Du meine G__ü__te_," she murmured. "Jer." Her husband being in danger because of something she did was a thought she hadn't let herself form, and yet, of all of them, he was probably the one in the most danger. She cleared her throat. "Jeremy is probably up to his elbows in somebody's gut right now."

"What?"

"He's a surgeon, Agent DiNozzo. It's what he does." She blinked a few times. "He spends most of his time during the day operating, doesn't usually get home until 1900-2000. He can probably be found on the third floor of building ten at NNMC—in one of the ORs at Bethesda."

"If he knows who your brother-in-law's wife is, he definitely knows who your husband is," Gibbs pointed out. Geist nodded slowly.

"I know."

"You need to call him and get him here, now."

She shook her head. "No," she said firmly. Gibbs' eyebrows rose. "Calling him won't do any good," she said as she made her way from in front of the desk to behind it, logging back onto the computer. "He's a surgeon. He keeps his phone in his white coat pocket, which is probably hanging in the resident lounge. I'm not going to call him." She smiled slightly at the bewildered expressions on the agents' faces. "I'm going to _page_ him."

She just hoped he got to his pager before Ye got to him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Loose Ends: Chapter 9**

* * *

After typing something into the computer—probably sending a page to the hospital—LT Geist reached for McGee's phone and dialed a number from memory. It must have rang a few times before someone picked up, and the next thing Ziva David noticed, the lieutenant's face softened with a slight smile as she greeted whoever was on the other end of the line in German, her voice as light as that language would allow.

"What's she saying?" Tony leaned across the few inches separating them to whisper that question in her ear, and she tried not to think about the goosebumps that suddenly appeared on her arms from the slight contact.

"I believe she is talking to her father-in-law," Ziva finally replied. German wasn't her best language, and she had to focus on what the other woman was saying. "She referred to him as 'Anton' and said that is has been an odd day, presumably responding to something that was asked."

"Thanks, Ziva," DiNozzo said dryly. "I _do_ know how phone calls work."

She ignored him, continuing to focus on the conversation. "She informed him that someone is after her and that he may be at risk. She is being vague on the details."

"Well, how does one explain to a father-in-law that a Chinese spy she investigated while undercover five months ago killed a Marine officer who looks just like his _other_ daughter-in-law, and that that might be a warning that he's planning on going after the family?" he asked sarcastically. She ignored him again.

"She just told him that he should go to Harrisburg Air Force Base, that it is the closest," Ziva continued. A slight smile curled her lips upward. "She gave him the name Colonel Edward McCasling, said that he would be a good person to ask his questions about military history to." She went back to listening as Geist's tone changed slightly, becoming almost exasperated, and she chuckled. Tony looked at her curiously. "He must have agreed, because now she is saying that she is sorry that she has not been to visit in awhile and that they will try to go to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving." She frowned slightly. "And that she will call with the results from the sonogram tomorrow." Ziva could practically feel Tony frowning in her direction at the change in her tone, but she couldn't bring herself to look over in his direction. She remained focused on the conversation and shook her head slightly when Geist hung up the phone. "That is all. She said good-bye and hung up."

"Thanks. Couldn't have figured that out on my own," he said sarcastically. She could still feel him looking at her with that expression he wore sometimes, the one that was like he was trying to look right into her head and figure out what she was thinking, but she still didn't turn to acknowledge him. She knew she should return to her desk and ignore him, but couldn't bring herself to do that, either.

She saw Geist's eyes dart to her and smirk slightly before returning her attention to the phone, where she dialed another number from memory. This time, the lieutenant swore softly in Spanish before speaking again in German, sounding like she was leaving a voicemail message as she emphatically told the person she was leaving the message for—probably her brother-in-law, from the sounds of it—to stay on base, indoors if he could, and be on the look-out for anybody unfamiliar. She promised to call later with more information. Another phone call was similar to the last, at least in the respect that she had to leave a voicemail message. As far as the content, Ziva had no idea; the message was in Chinese, a language she didn't speak and couldn't translate. She frowned as a paranoid voice in the back of her mind, the one developed over years of Mossad training and constant vigilance, of always looking over her shoulder and never trusting anyone, began asking if Geist was still holding back on them, if she was deceiving them and truly working for the enemy, if everything she had said since she arrived at NCIS was really a ruse designed to get them to trust her and tell her what she needed to know to achieve the objectives of whatever mission it was that she was on. She glanced over at Tony to see him studying LT Geist with a similar frown on his face, and knew that he was wondering the same thing.

---

Ariadne sighed as she hung up the phone. Like with her brother-in-law Hayden, she had to leave a voicemail message on her brother Tomas' phone; between classes, rehearsals, and time spent in the practice rooms at the Armed Forces School of Music, she hadn't been too surprised that he didn't answer her call. She left a quick message saying pretty much the same thing she told Hayden: don't leave base, don't spent too much time outdoors, stay in groups whenever possible, and be wary of any unfamiliar middle-aged Chinese men, regardless of whether or not he was in uniform. She ended the conversation by saying she would explain as soon as she could, and never one to miss an opportunity to tease her younger brother, jokingly commented that she was doing the people of Quantico a favor by confining him to base instead of allowing him to go with his jazz band to perform that evening.

That task complete, she again hung up the phone before dialing a fourth number. She knew that she should have called Nichole Bradford as soon as she was done talking to her father-in-law, but kept putting it off. She had nothing against Hayden's wife—with the exception of the fact that she was a lawyer, of course—but of the people she promised to call to apprise of the situation, she knew from the beginning that Nichole would be the least receptive. It wasn't that Nichole wasn't smart enough to grasp the weight of the situation, it was just that she was too focused on her work to allow anything else—including international assassins—get in the way of that. And so Geist went with the easier phone calls first. She sighed again as she heard the phone on the other end of the conversation ringing.

"_Nolan and Revere, this is Nichole Bradford._"

"Hey, Nichole, it's Ariadne."

_"Ariadne!_" Nichole replied, her all-business tone instantly lightened. Ariadne imagined the younger woman leaning back in the chair in her office, wearing some immaculately-tailored Prada or Armani or Gucci business suit and equally immaculately-coiffed hair, and frowned that that was the first thing that jumped to mind. She had no problems with the fact that Nichole grew up with money; in fact, it could be said that both of the Geist brothers married well in that regard. Her own family wasn't quite in the same league as the Bradfords, but they were still far from destitute. "_I'm sorry I haven't called you and Jeremy about dinner in awhile, but things have been so busy at work_."

"That's okay," Geist replied. To be honest, she had forgotten about the standing offer for dinner. "Nichole, this is going to sound a little crazy, but you need to hear me out."

"_Sure,_" the lawyer replied. "_What is it?_"

Ariadne took a deep breath. "I need you to come into NCIS, at the Navy Yard," she said. Her words were met with silence.

"_If that's a joke, Ariadne, you really need to work on your delivery_."

"I wish it was, Nichole. Believe me, I wish it was." She took another deep breath, trying to figure out how to explain the situation. "When I was deployed, there was a man we were investigating—"

"_Investigating for what?_" Geist sighed.

"I can't tell you that," she said patiently.

"_Until all the facts are presented—_"

"Nichole, I need you to stop thinking like a lawyer and just listen to me," Geist interrupted. "I can't tell you what we were investigating him for, but he's not a pleasant man, and believe me when I say that I wouldn't be asking this of you if it weren't important. Your life is in danger, and I'm not being dramatic."

Her words were met with a long pause before Nichole replied. "_I can't drop everything and go to NCIS, Ariadne. I have meetings and reports and—_"

"Then what about a guard?"

This time, her words were met with laughter. "_Lawyer-client privilege, Ariadne. I can't have a third party sitting in on my meetings. And don't even get me started on how it will look if I have armed guards following me around_."

"Someone discreet," Geist pressed. "We can have people there who will look and act like paralegals or legal assistances or secretaries or whatever."

_"I think you're over-reacting._"

"Nichole, in all the time you've known me, how many times have I talked about my work?" Her question was met with silence, which she took as an invitation to continue. "I'm not allowed to say much, but I'm telling you this now, so know that I'm serious. There's a lot that can I handle on my own. A lot. I'm sure Hayden would tell you the same thing, but this is bigger than that. I can't be in multiple places at once, and one of those places is around you, making sure he doesn't get near you."

"_One guard,_" Nichole finally said. "_And make sure he or she is discreet._"

"Thank you," Geist said with relief. She mentally went through the available agents and selected a few possibilities. "And I need you to be diligent as well. Keep your eyes out for anything out of the ordinary, and try to avoid any middle-aged Chinese men—." She stopped at Nichole's sudden laughter. "What?"

"_The middle-aged Chinese men part,_" Nichole explained. "_I have a meeting with the executives of a Chinese firm in two hours. The place will be crawling with middle-aged Chinese men._"

Geist felt her blood run cold. "When was that meeting scheduled?"

"_I'm not sure, exactly. Maybe a week ago?_"

"Can anyone else cover it for you?" Nichole snorted.

"_Only if I want to lose my job, and with Hayden taking a massive pay-cut to join the Navy, that's really not an option right now. No, I have to be at that meeting._"

Geist massaged the bridge of her nose briefly, knowing she wasn't going to be winning this one, despite the voice screaming in her head that the meeting was some sort of trap to allow the man she knew as Colonel Ye to get close to Nichole. "Okay," she said slowly. "Just…be careful. And keep me posted, okay? And we'll talk about dinner soon."

"_Okay,_" Nichole agreed. "_And you be careful too, okay?_"

"I always am."

"_Which explains why there are people out there trying to kill you and your family_," Nichole shot back. She sighed. "_Sorry. You've talked to Anton and Hayden?_"

"I have," Ariadne confirmed. "Anton is going to an Air Force base near Philly, and Hayden knows to stay on base."

"_Okay. And Ariadne… Thanks._"

"You're welcome. I'll talk you later."

"_Good-bye._" Ariadne hung up the phone slowly. She turned to face Agent DiNozzo and Officer David, both watching her with curious expressions on her face. She frowned and turned her attention to Agent Gibbs, still sitting at his desk, appearing as casual as if it were any other day.

"I've talked to everyone you told me to talk to, Agent Gibbs," she said. "Now if you don't mind, I'd like to get to work finding this bastard. I have places to be tonight."


	10. Chapter 10

**Loose Ends: Chapter 10**

* * *

A heavy silence had fallen over the bullpen after that last phone call, broken only by the rapid clicking of the keys under Geist's fingers and the distant ringing of telephones on the other end of the squad room. Everyone had their own things that they were working on, and nobody seemed interested in talking to anybody else while they did those things, and the minutes stretched on until they felt like hours.

Ziva was in the midst of sifting through Interpol files sent to her by one of her contacts while shooting subtle glances at the other occupant of the MCRT bullpen. Gibbs had disappeared shortly after barking his orders for everybody to get back to work, probably to go down to Autopsy to check in with Ducky and Jimmy Palmer to see if they found anything that would help with 2ndLt Andrea Dailey's murder. Abby had likewise returned to her downstairs domain, under orders from Gibbs to go through records from Immigration over the last few days to see if they could find any evidence of Colonel Ye entering the country. She had protested about the fragmentation of the data—there were multiple points of entry into the country, each of which had its own records—but like always when someone tried arguing with Gibbs, her words fell on deaf ears, leaving her muttering something about pointless busy-work as she trudged to the back elevator. She had no idea what Tony was doing, as he had already submitted the BOLO with the pictures of the man they knew as Colonel Ye, along with the instructions to other LEOs not to approach under any circumstance. He was now staring intently at his computer screen with a completely unreadable expression on his face. McGee was also at a computer—in this case, Gibbs', with the boss's approval—his fingers moving almost as quickly as Geist's. The NSA agent had given him instructions on something to check, using computer terms that Ziva couldn't begin to understand even if she wanted to.

She glanced up at Tony again to see him now looking at her. She narrowed her eyes slightly at the expression on his face, trying to figure out what exactly it was supposed to mean. It was almost like he was trying to figure out the next course of action, but she didn't know why he was wondering that; after all, LT Geist had made it very clear who was in charge of the investigation, and for once, it wasn't Gibbs and the rest of the team.

"Agent DiNozzo," Geist said from her position at McGee's computer, her eyes still fixed forward at the monitor, but a slight smile on her face. She said those two words with a heavy Italian accent, almost emulating the 'DiNotso' that Fornell always said. "_Parli Italiano?_"

He blinked at the sudden Italian phrase, an expression of confusion briefly crossing his face. "_Si, un poco_," he finally replied. "But I'm fluent in Spanish."

Geist smirked slightly, but the expression didn't quite meet her eyes. Ziva caught her glancing toward the elevator with an almost worried expression before returning her attention to the computer screen. "Spanish and Italian are very similar," she finally said. "Just change some 'a' sounds for 'o' sounds and you're practically fluent in both."

He frowned, trying to figure out why that was relevant. He eventually decided it was best to just ask. "Why do you want to know?"

Geist shrugged her right shoulder. "_Apenas curioso_," she replied in Spanish. Her eyes darted to the elevators again before falling on Ziva. Her lips twitched into a smile and her green eyes took on a decidedly mischievous glint before she casually said something in German. Ziva looked a bit surprised, then slightly embarrassed, before she responded to that in Russian. The back-and-forth continued, the language changing with each sentence that the two women exchanged, and all Tony could do was turn his head between them, trying to identify the languages as they were spoken: German, Russian, Greek, French, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese. He felt like he got lost in a foreign film festival and couldn't make out the subtitles.

"I do not know Chinese," Ziva responded in English, sounding almost apologetic. Geist grinned at that and chuckled.

"That's okay," she said. "What I said was that I don't speak Hebrew." Ziva smiled slightly at that, and Geist's eyes again lifted from the computer monitor to the elevator. She frowned but didn't say anything about what she was waiting for. "Agent McGee," she said, her gaze moving to the special agent currently sitting at Gibbs' computer. "I have three more aliases for you to put into that search database."

"Sure," McGee replied, his hands poised over the keyboard, ready to type.

"Li Qiao, Jonathan Fai, and—_Jeremy_." She stopped abruptly, rising and heading for the elevator without another word. DiNozzo and Ziva watched with interest as she walked quickly toward the man who stepped out, her attention seemingly focused on him and him alone.

"Jeremy?" McGee echoed, _his_ attention still focused on the computer screen. "Jeremy _who_?"

"I think _Geist_, Probie," DiNozzo observed, still watching the lieutenant. The man who stepped out of the elevator, another Navy lieutenant with his black uniform jacket over his khaki uniform, was tall—probably a couple of inches taller than Tony—and lean, but without the gangliness that someone like Jimmy Palmer had. His dark hair was buzzed short; his almond-shaped dark eyes, speaking of some sort of Asian ancestry, were locked on the figure of the woman approaching him. Ariadne walked up to him confidently before taking his face between her hands and kissing him without hesitation. He appeared surprised by the move initially, but then moved his free right hand to Geist's hip, his left still holding back the black shoulder bag that hung there. "At least, if it's not, she has some explaining to do to her husband." He got up to watch the encounter from in front of Ziva's desk, resting his hands on its surface as he leaned closer to get a better look. None of the three NCIS agents bothered to hide the fact that they were watching the two lieutenants.

"You are just wondering if that means she is open to other relationships, Tony," Ziva mocked lightly in regards to his last comment.

"No way," he answered automatically. "Women with children… That's a complication I _don't_ need."

"No children yet, Tony," McGee pointed out. The senior field agent made a face.

"Once they start acting as incubators, it's all over," he declared. Ziva rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the two lieutenants by the elevator.

And then without any warning, Geist pulled away from the man who was probably her husband. "_Du Idiot!_" she scolded angrily as she smacked him in the chest. DiNozzo leaned back involuntarily at her tone.

"Whoa," he murmured. "Someone's angry." He leaned forward again to get a better view of the interaction by the elevator. He frowned as he realized that LT Geist was scolding her husband—after they separated, the nametag declaring the new visitor to be 'GEIST' became visible—in German, and he was responding in the same. "Do you know what they're saying?" he asked Ziva in a low tone.

"Tony," she said incredulously. "It is a private conversation. I can not believe that you want to eavesdrop on them."

"Now, that I find hard to believe," he said thoughtfully. She frowned. "That you can't believe it," he clarified. "Don't you know me at all?" She gave him a dark look, but turned back to the Geists, appearing to listen.

"She asked what took him so long to arrive," Ziva finally translated. "He replied that he had to get another surgeon to take over for him, and then change out of his scrubs, take the Metro back to their home, change into uniform, and drive to the Navy Yard." She frowned slightly. "At least, that is what I think he said. He said quite a lot quickly and his dialect—"

"I think that's pretty much the gist of it," he interrupted, gesturing for her to continue.

"She replied that when getting a—a call? Maybe a page?—from his wife telling him to report to NCIS, that he should drop everything and go immediately, even if that means he must go in bloody scrubs. She then said that she should have sent for a car to pick him up, so he would not have had the option of wasting time."

Dr. Geist opened his mouth to reply to that, but before he could say anything, his pager went off. He gave his wife an apologetic expression as he pulled out his cell phone. "This is Dr. Geist. I was paged," he said into the phone when the call connected. He listened for a few minutes before saying, "Okay. I want you to tell him that he's a nurse, and until he gets an MD, that he's not a real doctor and isn't allowed to make decisions on patient care. His job is to do what the doctors order, which means he needs to give the guy the liter bolus of normal saline, and if he doesn't do that, I'll put him on report."

"Whoa," Tony muttered. "This guy's an ass." Ziva shot him a glare, and apparently his voice carried more than he realized, because Ariadne shot him an amused look before turning back to her husband.

"Agent DiNozzo just called you an ass," she reported. He shrugged as he replaced the phone on his belt.

"I'm a surgeon," he replied. "It's my job." He smirked slightly and bent down to kiss his wife lightly. "Sorry I worried you. Next time I'm called urgently to NCIS, I'll leave the OR immediately and let my patient die on the table as I make my way here _post haste_."

She rolled her eyes at his sarcasm. "It's a good thing you're good looking," she scoffed as she turned to return to McGee's desk. "It means I don't need to convince anyone I married you because you're a kind, caring, decent human being."

"That kid is going to think its parent hate each other," he pointed out as he followed her across the bullpen.

"It's also going to think we hate it, because we still refer to it as 'it'."

"Only for another," he glanced at his watch, "twenty hours or so. Then hopefully we'll have a real pronoun to go with."

"True." Standing by McGee's chair, she turned and studied her husband for a minute, and Ziva blinked at the expression on the NSA agent's face; it was very similar to a look she had seen on Tony's face when she had caught him looking at her. It was like Geist thought she could see what her husband was thinking if she just looked hard enough, like if she tried hard enough, she would know everything about him. Suddenly acutely aware of just how close her partner was to her, Ziva knew that she should step back, look away, and get back to her work, but found she couldn't.

Her eyes were still locked on the Geists as she watched Ariadne reach to the back of Jeremy's neck and tug at the chain of his dogtags from under his shirt. She continued pulling at it until the tags were visible before unclasping the smaller of the two loops. She pulled something off the chain and palmed it, then resecured the loop. There was an amused look on Jeremy's face as he held out his left hand without his wife saying anything, and Ziva blinked in surprise as she realized that Ariadne was slipping his wedding band onto his finger.

And as abruptly as the moment had started, it was over, and with the blink of an eye, Ariadne was back to business. "You probably have half a dozen AHLTA notes to finish, don't you?" she asked her husband. He grimaced.

"Probably closer to a dozen," he admitted. She rolled her eyes as she indicated for him to follow her to the rarely-used desk on the other side of the partition.

"Just let me get AHLTA on this computer, then you'll have something to do while we work on catching the bad guy."

"Sounds like the usual pattern," he said with an exaggerated sigh. "Have the doctor do doctor-work and hope he doesn't pay too close attention to the spies doing their thing using highly-questionable means."

She smiled thinly. "It's not like that at all, Jer," she protested lightly. She glanced up from the computer, her eyes meeting Ziva's briefly. "There are only two spies here. The rest are NCIS special agents."

"I stand corrected," he replied dryly. He made a face as he tugged at the collar of his uniform. "Did this uniform always itch so much?" he complained. Ariadne glanced up.

"You're the one who decided to go home and put it on," she reminded him before returning her attention to hacking into the DoD's electronic medical record system to download the program into the computer. Jeremy made a face in her direction as he began to pace around, obviously bored.

He stopped immediately in front of the screen and froze at the image displayed there. "_Du meine G__ü__te_," he murmured. Ariande's head shot up at the comment. "This lieutenant looks just like—"

"Nichole," the female LT Geist finished softly. "I know." Her husband appeared to think about that for a moment.

"Someone's after you and your loved ones," he finally stated, his voice flat. The two continued to stare at each other, a determined look on her face and an unreadable one on his. Still standing close to her, Ziva could hear DiNozzo's sharp intake of breath, his head moving as he looked from one LT Geist to the next.

"And we know where he is." Everyone turned to see Gibbs stride toward them, a cup of coffee in hand. "Got a hit on the BOLO. Metro PD's keeping an eye on him in the National Mall."

"Let's go," DiNozzo said, heading toward his desk to grab his gear.

"No," Ariadne interrupted. With one last unreadable glance at her husband, her eyes went to Gibbs. "If you don't mind, Agent Gibbs, I have a better idea."


	11. Chapter 11

**Loose Ends: Chapter 11**

* * *

"Oh, my God!" Abby Sciuto enthused for what had to be at least the fourth time. "I can't believe I get to do some real field work!"

"It is not exactly field work, Abby," Ziva countered from the next seat on the Metro. Ariadne had clearly outlined her plan for bringing in Colonel Ye; to Gibbs' obvious displeasure, it involved strategic placement of women who could be mistaken for her, at least from the back, a description which happened to include the black-haired forensic scientist. Their first stop, though, was to L'Enfant Plaza, to get both Abby and LT Geist clothing for the mission. Ziva was the only one already appropriately dressed.

"It's not lab work," Abby countered, "which just leaves field work. Am I going to be carrying a gun? Because I know how to fire a weapon. A lot of weapons, actually. I do so all the time in the lab."

"You're not going to need a weapon," Geist said, her first words since explaining her plan in the bullpen. "You're going to be outside the line of fire. Far outside of it."

"Okay," Abby said, relief obvious in her voice. "Not that I'm not willing to do more, but—"

"It's not your training," Geist replied as she stood to exit the Metro at their stop. She smiled thinly at the forensic scientist. "We understand that." Abby merely nodded in reply.

"You know, I've never been shopping at L'Enfant Plaza," Abby said thoughtfully as they walked the promenade, their unusual mixed appearance—a goth, a Navy lieutenant, a casually-dressed Israeli spy—not even getting a second glance from the busy DC crowd. "In fact, I don't think I've ever heard of _anybody_ shopping at L'Enfant Plaza."

"That's because there's not much here," Geist said thoughtfully as she ducked into an off-label clothing store. She smiled thinly at the middle-aged saleslady as she began rifling through the racks. "Here. Try these on," she said, trusting a pair of jeans and thick dark sweater into Abby's arms.

"These?" she asked, making a face.

"I know," Geist replied. "But the point is to put you in something that a cryptographer might conceivably be seen in, in her off-hours. And warm enough for you stand outside in for as long as this takes."

While Abby was in the fitting room, Geist continued to search for clothes for herself, pulling shirts out and replacing them quickly. Ziva blinked as she realized the pattern of what the lieutenant was rejecting. "You are attempting to emphasize your pregnancy," she said. Geist paused for a minute to study her before returning to her shopping.

"That's right," she finally said. Ziva frowned.

"Will it make him less likely to kill you, if he knows that you are pregnant?"

"No," Ariadne replied, still not meeting the Mossad officer's gaze. "If anything, it'll probably piss him off more. At this point, he _suspects_ that I was an American spy sent there to gather his secrets, but there are other possibilities."

"That you are a mercenary offered more money from someone else," Ziva filled in. Geist nodded.

"But if I show up visibly pregnant, it'll confirm that I was on a mission all along, that I had a committed relationship to return to." She smirked slightly at a memory. "We planted clues in my cover identity that I had a lesbian lover in Greece, to distract the Intelligence operatives trying to find holes."

"The more distracting information they have, the less likely they are to dig deeper." That was a lesson Ziva learned from her time as a control officer. When she was in the field, she never gave her cover identities a second thought, taking them for granted as another layer of security between her real life and her mission; once she became the one in charge of creating them, she realized just how vital every piece of information was.

"They fit." Abby's glum voice distracted them from their conversation as they turned toward the fitting rooms, where the pig-tailed goth was frowning at the mirror. "I feel like the cover of _Boring Suburban America Weekly_."

"I'll try not to take that personally," Geist said dryly as she traded places with Abby. She returned a few minutes later in pair of tight black stretch pants under a long-sleeved shirt-dress that was tight enough to make it obvious that she was pregnant without being trashy. Ziva frowned slightly; even in uniform, she couldn't figure out how she hadn't immediately noticed the bulge in the otherwise model-thin lieutenant's abdomen. If she had been staring, Geist seemed unperturbed by it. "Let's pay for these and continue shopping. We still need shoes and make-up." She pulled out a credit card to pay for her outfit and Abby's, signing the receipt without looking at the total.

Their next stop was a shoe store—cleverly called "Shooz"—where it was a pair of black fur-lined imitation Ugg boots for Abby and flexible, slip-on cycling-type shoes for Geist. The final stop was to a boutique-style cosmetics store, where the lieutenant put a small fortune of Japanese-made make-up onto that same credit card she had used previously.

Geist frowned as she studied her watch for a minute. "Ye was spotted on the Mall an hour ago," she said. "Realistically, we probably have another hour before he's going to move on. We could go back to the Navy Yard, or straight to the Mall."

"We should go back to NCIS and coordinate with the rest of the team," Ziva replied. Geist's eyebrows rose slightly at something she heard in the tone, but nodded her agreement.

"Let's go," she said.

---

While the women were out shopping, Gibbs, DiNozzo, and McGee continued to coordinate with the necessary authorities and departments to bring this 'Colonel Ye' down. Dr. Jeremy Geist hung back from the NCIS agents, listening with a frown on his face. He considered himself a pretty smart person—not everyone could go on to become a surgeon, after all—but to him, the whole plan seemed far too simplistic to ever work. Gibbs and DiNozzo would be providing a perimeter while McGee ran surveillance from the truck. Abby Sciuto and Ziva David would be positioned close enough to Ye that the Chinese man would be momentarily distracted by trying to determine which tall raven-haired woman was Ariadne Geist, and his wife—his _pregnant_ wife—would be wearing a wire when she approached Ye and 'talked'.

There had been a glint in Ariadne's green eyes as she explained her plan, something hard that he didn't recognize at all. He knew what she had done at the beginning of her career, in the years between graduation from the Naval Academy and when their paths crossed again—espionage, subterfuge, state-sponsored assassinations that "didn't happen"—but he had never before seen that person. The Ariadne he knew ran more than four miles every morning, was most comfortable in jeans and a tee-shirt, spent most of her time in front of a computer screen, liked to try new restaurants, could cook like a pro, and teased her husband by speaking languages he didn't understand at every opportunity she got. He didn't know the woman who could fit in anywhere, fired a weapon as accurately with her left hand as with her right, or knew how to kill someone and leave no evidence that she was there—or that the bastard was murdered in the first place.

She had told him once that that woman died after getting shot on a mission. He believed her, until she left abruptly for the 'deployment' that started this whole mess that brought them both to NCIS.

"Dr. Geist." He blinked at the intrusion of Special Agent Gibbs' voice into his thoughts. "You'll stay here."

"No," he said bluntly, shaking his head to add emphasis. "I'm going." Gibbs frowned.

"No place for surgeons."

"I've been listening to this plan of yours, and if anything goes wrong, there _will_ be a place for a surgeon. No, Agent Gibbs, I'm going." The NCIS agent still looked unconvinced, so he pressed on. "I've qualified as an expert on both the pistol and the rifle, and Ariadne makes me go to the range at least once every other week to keep it up. And I won't get in the way." Gibbs looked ready to refuse again, prompting him to add, his voice low and intense: "That's my wife and kid out there." The two locked eyes in a silent staring match.

"You'll stay in the van with McGee and the translator," Gibbs finally declared. "You leave that van, I'll shoot you myself."

"Deal."

"Bad news, Boss." Everyone in the bullpen turned to face Agent McGee, again seated at his own desk, hanging up his phone. "We don't have any Chinese translators available."

"CIA?"

McGee shook his head. "Both the CIA and NSA said they can lend us someone tomorrow."

"We don't _have_ until tomorrow, McGee!"

"I, uh, told them that, Boss. They said there's nothing they can do."

"Tomas," Dr. Geist said abruptly. The other men turned to look at him. "Lance Corporal Tomas Jin, Ariadne's younger brother. The only problem is, he's not exactly a translator."

"Armed Forces School of Music." Gibbs said flatly. "Don't need a bugle player."

"Piano, actually," Dr. Geist corrected. "He also speaks Chinese fluently. Same dialect as Ariadne. Obviously."

"Don't have any other options," Gibbs said after a moment. "Get him here."

"On it, Boss," DiNozzo replied quickly, reaching for his phone. He was still talking to someone at Little Creek about getting a chopper to get Tomas from base to the Navy Yard when the elevator doors slid open, revealing the three women. Jeremy found himself smiling at how _unlike_ Ariadne her clothes were. DiNozzo smirked when Abby's outfit registered.

"Don't start," the forensic scientist said warningly. He just grinned.

"Jer," Ariadne said quietly, handing him a shopping bag. He glanced inside, confused. "My uniform and shoes." She tilted her head up to kiss him lightly. "I'm going to need those tomorrow." He saw the look on her face and nodded slightly, recognizing the words for what they were, a request to trust her on this mission. "Okay," she said, now addressing the other women. "Hair and make-up."

DiNozzo smirked as he hung up the phone. "And then after that, a pillow fight. This is just like a slumber party," he said with obvious glee. Ziva rolled her eyes.

"Yes, Agent DiNozzo," Ariadne said dryly. "Covert missions are often exactly like slumber parties. If your slumber parties involve guns, wires, and international terrorists."


	12. Chapter 12

**Loose Ends: Chapter 12**

_A/N: Thank you to everyone who has been reviewing. I'm not meaning to ignore you (honest!); I just spend far too much time at work, and apparently someone decided that access to FFN would decrease productivity and blocked the website. I mean, it's bad enough that they block Facebook, but FFN? Anyway, thanks again, and I'll do my best to answer any questions asked in review (or PM) form._

* * *

"Metro PD has been keeping an eye on our colonel for us, Boss," Agent McGee said, his eyes on the laptop he was holding as he stood with Gibbs and Dr. Jeremy Geist at the corner of the helipad, waiting for the chopper to arrive from Little Creek. DiNozzo and Abby had been the first to leave NCIS, taking one of the Chargers so Tony could scope out the area, as well as protected, yet visible, places for Abby. Ziva and LT Geist had taken another Charger, to do pretty much the same thing after approaching from the other end of the Mall. Both Ariadne and Ziva had been in full 'super ninja mode', as Tony would have put it, and they just fed off each other to the point where both were so focused that LT Geist didn't seem to pick up on the fact that both her husband and brother would be at the scene.

McGee didn't know what he expected when the chopper landed; considering they were waiting for a piano player who spoke Chinese fluently, he had a mental picture of a short Asian-looking guy with thick glasses and a nervous laugh. He couldn't have been more wrong. The Marine who stepped out of that helicopter looked very much like a Marine—tall and lean, with the type of build that gave Dress Blue Charlies the reputation for being the best looking military uniform in the world; dark hair cut short in a typical high-and-tight; his camouflage uniform looking crisp and sharp. His skin was a little darker than his sister's, his features with more of an Asian influence, but not in a way McGee could define. He didn't know why he was caught so off-guard; Ariadne Geist was an attractive woman—why wouldn't her brother be good-looking as well?

The lance corporal had again surprised McGee when, after stepping off the helipad, had instantly snapped to attention, saluting his brother-in-law with a loud, "Sir!" The doctor had rolled his eyes and lifted his right hand toward his eye in a quick salute.

"You're an ass," he said matter-of-factly. Corporal Jin gave a wide, almost lazy smile that, had his hair been longer, would have made him look more in place in swim trunks at a California beach than in cammies standing by a helipad.

"Just trying to show respect to an officer in uniform, _sir_," Jin shot back, still grinning. "Didn't even know you still owned a uniform, _sir_." Dr. Geist opened his mouth to reply, but Gibbs cleared his throat to interrupt.

"Continue the reunion later," he said dryly. "Let's go." He turned and headed for the carport without waiting for the others. They had been driving for a few minutes before he spoke again. "Metro still baby-sitting?"

"Uh, yeah, Boss," McGee replied, his laptop now on his lap, which was hazardous in and of itself, considering Gibbs' driving. "He's been in pretty much the same place for the last twenty minutes. He's been sitting in front of the Museum of Natural History."

"What's he doing there?"

"According to Metro PD, texting." At Gibbs' blank look, he explained, "Uh, sending text messages on his phone—"

"I know what 'texting' is, McGee," Gibbs interrupted. "Do we know _who?_"

"Probably no one." McGee turned toward the back of the large van to look at Corporal Jin, and even Gibbs glanced in the rearview mirror. The Marine shrugged. "You just sit and stare at people, people are going to get freaked out. You have a cell phone in your hand, nobody gives you a second thought. It's a great way to fit in." He smirked slightly. "That's what I do when I watch the drummers practice, so Rodriguez can't yell at me for stalking her."

"She's going to kick your ass one of these days," Dr. Geist informed his younger brother-in-law. "She _is_ a Marine, after all."

"I don't think you're the best one to give me advice about ass-kicking girls, Jeremy," Jin replied. "Remind me to introduce you to my sister at some point. What is this mission about, anyway? All Major Malinowski said was that NCIS needed a Chinese translator and it was time for me to earn that specialty pay I get every month for knowing it." He frowned before a look of almost-horrored realization crossed his face. "You're out of the hospital," he said slowly, "and you're never out of the hospital unless Ari is with you. And she's not here, and you need an emergency Chinese translator. What the hell did my sister do now?"

"Pissed off some Chinese spy," Gibbs said bluntly from the driver's seat before Dr. Geist had the chance to say anything. "Now he wants her dead."

Jin frowned at the back of Gibbs' head. "Oh," he finally said. "Is that all?" He chuckled slightly. "Wouldn't be the first. She's always been fine."

"Except for the time she was shot and almost died," Jeremy shot back with a glare. "Oh! Except for a few minutes there, she _did_ die."

"Hey!" Gibbs exclaimed, glaring into the rearview mirror. "If you can't handle this, get out of the van. You want to stay, _shut up_."

Dr. Geist blinked in surprise at the sharp tone, but wisely kept his mouth shut as Gibbs continued to weave through traffic, his horn blaring. It wasn't until they were within two blocks of the Museum of Natural History that he slowed down, pulling the van into a non-parking space on 12th Street. "McGee, get your do-das set up," he said, waving to the computer equipment in the back. "Make sure Jin's hooked up to audio. Geist, just stay out of their way." He stepped out, slamming his door behind him. He discreetly showed his credentials to a plainclothes Metro cop approaching the van, earning him a nod in response.

"Camera one is up," McGee reported a few minutes later, after Gibbs had placed a small camera on a tree. The view was angled at the front steps of the museum. For a minute, all they could see was a group of school children descending the steps, the excited expressions on their faces and the Tyrannosaurus Rex poses they made making it obvious that they enjoyed the museum.

"You still planning on coming tonight?" Jin asked almost distractedly, his attention already completely focused on the monitor.

"You'll have to ask the social coordinator," his brother-in-law replied in almost the same tone, also staring at the monitor. "I'm married. I don't make my own decisions anymore." He could practically hear Tomas' smirk at the remark.

And then the kids were out of the way, leaving the picture free, except for a single man in jeans and a light-weight jacket sitting casually on the steps, his phone in his hands. He glanced up occasionally, only to return his attention to that phone. "That's him, isn't it?" Dr. Geist asked rhetorically. "Damn it, I'll get him myself."

"Yeah, good plan," his brother-in-law said sarcastically. "And then, after you get yourself killed, Ariadne gets to screw up that kid's life by herself."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Jeremy replied dryly. "I just can't figure out if it's in my abilities to take down a middle-aged man a foot shorter than me, or in my parenting skills."

"Face it, Jer, you and Ari suck with kids. Procreation… Not really you guys' best idea."

"There's a reason why you'll never get married."

"No need to," Tomas said smugly. "To quote _Jarhead_, if the Corps wanted me to have a wife, they'd issue me one."

"That why you're always harassing Rodriguez?"

"I'm not going to _marry_ her. She's eighteen. Nobody meets a future spouse at eighteen." He looked over to see his brother-in-law looking at him with eyebrows raised. "Okay, nobody _normal_ meets a future spouse at eighteen."

"My sister was twelve when she met her husband. They weren't dating until she was fourteen, though."

"Please tell me you're not still bitter at her for dating your best friend, fourteen years after the fact."

"Camera two's up," McGee interjected, cutting off their conversation. Both men turned to face the second monitor, displaying a front-on view of the museum steps. From the front, the Chinese man looked even less intimidating than in profile. Somehow, Jeremy expected him to _look_ like the villain; the separation between the good guys and the bad guys should be as easy to see in real life as it was in the movies. If that were true, though, nobody would be fooled, the bad guys would never get away with anything, and people like Ariadne wouldn't need to do what people like Ariadne do.

"_Sound check_." He blinked at the sound of Gibbs' voice through the van's speakers. "_Geist, let's hear it._" For a second, he thought the supervisory field agent was talking to him; since he was never around his wife when she was at work, he rarely heard her called by their last name.

"_Hey, Agent McGee_." He recognized that tone in her voice; wherever she was standing, she was holding a cell phone to her ear to avoid looking like she was talking to herself. "_I have a question for you. Are you Mormon, by any chance?_" McGee blinked in surprise at the question while Jeremy smirked; he knew where she was going with that. Without having a way to receive a response—she had declared that Ye would notice an earwig and it was therefore too risky—she continued, enjoying the fact that she could monopolize the audio during the sound check. "_My former partner's looking—well, to be honest, her parents are looking—for a husband candidate. Only problem is, the Wallace family is very Mormon, and it seems like most Mormon guys expect their wives to stay home and be barefoot and pregnant, and Deirdre isn't exactly into that. At least, not yet. Oh, and did I mention she's hot?_"

"She is, actually," Jeremy informed the NCIS agent. "Tall and blond, in great shape, green eyes, a couple of freckles. And she's got a really cute accent. Whichever accent you want her to have."

"No, thanks," McGee said with a quick shake of his head. "I'll pass on the world-traveling, terrorist-assassinating, spy thing. And I'm not Mormon."

"She's actually a linguist and is currently working as an instructor at Quantico, but suit yourself," the surgeon said with a shrug.

"_One last thing_," Ariadne added. She paused, then said, "_If this thing doesn't go down like it's supposed to, tell Jeremy that I'm sorry and that I love him_."

The other two men in the van looked involuntarily to Dr. Geist. "If this marriage is going to work, she's got to stop getting other people to relay that message to me," he muttered.

"_I'm ready_." He blinked in surprise at the two words; he knew that they had been coming, but he still wasn't ready for it. Maybe coming along wasn't the best idea; then again, not knowing was worse than knowing. And he knew that from experience.

McGee nodded absently at the words as he pressed a button and spoke into the microphone of his headset. "Lt. Geist is about to make her entrance," he reported to the team members spread throughout the Mall. He gestured for Jin to take the seat next to him.

"You get the feed from your sister's—uh, Lt. Geist's—mike through that headset," he said with a point. Jin put it dutifully around his neck while he waited for further instructions. "Your microphone goes straight to the recorder. I'm communicating with Gibbs, Tony, Ziva, and Abby, and—"

"Who?" Jin asked with a frown.

"The NCIS team," McGee summed up. "Since Lt. Geist doesn't have an earwig, we have no way of alerting her to anything that they see, but if she says anything that they need to be aware of, I'll relay that to them."

"So I need to be sure that everything gets translated exactly, so if she says anything that's supposed to special code to you people, that you can let them know."

"Yeah, pretty much," McGee agreed. "Except we didn't exactly have time to set up code phrases, so if she tries to say something covert, we probably won't pick up on it." Corporal Jin just looked at him for a minute.

"You're really boosting my confidence in your agency," he said flatly as he pulled the headphones over his ears, essentially blocking out the rest of the van. "Show time."


	13. Chapter 13

**Loose Ends: Chapter 13**

* * *

Ziva David glanced around the National Mall casually, her cell phone to her ear, as she slowly walked—_sauntered_, Tony would call it—along the dirt paths through the Mall, pretending to be engrossed in an intense conversation. Using the cell phone to connect with the van—and thus, with Tony, Gibbs, Abby, and McGee—had been her idea, inspired by the people who seemed to find it necessary to block her way, whether that be on her running trail or while she was shopping or just about anywhere else, as they happily chatted away on their cell phones, not a care in the world.

"She is approaching from behind the suspect," she reported. "She just exited the museum."

"_Thanks, Ziva_," Tony replied sarcastically. "_I can see that from here_." She barely resisted the urge to turn and glare toward the vendor stand where he was standing, selling hotdogs or some such thing as he kept an unobstructed view of the front of the Museum of Natural History. And doing a pretty good job of it, if the steady stream of customers was any indication. He probably just smiled, and the crowds flocked to him. He seemed to have that way with people, which even after years of working with him, she still couldn't quite put her finger on. Sure, he was attractive, but it was more than that, almost a magnetism—.

She shook her head sharply to end that train of thought as she transferred the phone from one ear to the other, turning a corner on the dirt path to continue her stroll while keeping the front of the museum in sight. LT Ariadne Geist was now standing directly behind the suspect, who had risen from his seated position to face her. She was holding her arm stiffly in front of her, likely holding a knife or a gun, but her expression remained friendly and conversant as they spoke, probably in a language Ziva didn't understand. She switched the phone, which was now being filled with Tony's endless prattling as he sold his wares, to her left ear, to keep her right hand free for her gun. She continued walking, heading closer to the museum. After seeing this man's skills, seeing what he had done to 2ndLt Dailey, Ziva knew that if anything went down, there would be nothing that she could do, other than shoot him after the fact. She couldn't protect LT Geist, even if the NSA agent and former—or not so former, Ziva knew how these things went—spy and assassin would allow for someone to protect her.

This time, she _did_ look over at the NCIS van, which was just visible from her position, and where she strongly suspected Dr. Jeremy Geist could be found; there was no way that man would agree to sitting around NCIS while his wife was confronting someone who wanted to kill her and her family. She knew that look on the surgeon's face when he realized just how much danger Ariadne was in, that look that was part concerned, part upset, part confident, part disapproving, part resigned, and overall affectionate.

She wondered if she had a similar look on her face when Tony explained another one of his ridiculous plans that always seemed to work out.

"McGee," she said into the phone. "Do we know what they're talking about?" Both LT Geist and Colonel Ye still had pleasant, conversant looks on their faces, as if they were old friends who just happened to run into each other after a day in the museum. She couldn't trust anything by their expressions; they were both trained spies, and while Ziva considered herself very well trained and good at her job, she wasn't quite at the same level as LT Geist. The NSA agent's looks made it easier for her to fit in, her language fluency made it easier for her to sell the part, and her computer skills added a completely different dimension than anything Ziva had to offer.

And judging by the fact that she was married and starting a family, she was better at figuring out what she wanted and how to get it, too.

"_Uh, nothing of much consequence_," McGee said in response to her question. "_They exchanged pleasantries, if you can call them pleasantries._" He paused a bit, then added, "_He said something about the set-up, said that he wasn't fooled by Abby, but it took him a moment to rule out Ziva. Uh, then he commented about her pregnancy and said something about the doctor being proud, so we can assume he knows about Dr. Geist_." She rolled her eyes at that; it was hardly news to them."_Some non-specific stuff about things that went down in China, but nothing that anybody would be able to use against this guy_."

"He would assume that she is wired and would know how to censor his speech," Ziva remarked.

"_That what you would do, Jane Bond?_" Tony asked teasingly. This time, she did turn toward him and give him a quick glare. She had no way of knowing if he even noticed. "_What's our end-game in this, Boss?_" he asked. "_Admitting to killing Lt. Dailey?_"

"_Let Lt. Geist decide_," Gibbs said. "_Rule 38_."

"_Do rules apply to people who aren't NCIS agents? Because that really doesn't seem fair. It took me—_"

"_DiNozzo. Shut up._"

"_Right. Sorry, Boss. McGiggle, what's she saying?_"

"_Uh…_" McGee let his voice trail off. "_It's pretty personal, Tony. I'll let you guys know if they say something we need to act on_." Ziva casually glanced over toward Geist and Ye again. The lieutenant was trying to keep the same unreadably-friendly look on her face, but Ziva could see the beginnings of something else there, the anger and frustration that Ye was trying to elicit. Ziva guessed that the only thing that could get that kind of reaction was taunts about her family. She just hoped it didn't distract Geist to the point where she wouldn't be able to complete the mission. In order to satisfy both the case of 2ndLt Dailey's murder and whatever espionage-related issues Geist and whoever she was working for, she had to keep him talking until he admitted to both.

Her eyes again wandered to the hotdog stand from where Tony was conducting his surveillance, and couldn't help but wonder just how much of that kind of talk _she_ would be able to take.

---

Special Agent Timothy McGee was trying to keep his attention focused on the two monitors in front of him and the conversation between his fellow NCIS agents, because everything else that was currently going on in the van had gotten far too awkward.

As soon as Lance Corporal Tomas Jin slipped the headphones over his ear, all joking with his older brother-in-law ceased immediately, his attention focused on the monitor and the words he was hearing through his sister's microphone. In that moment, with that intense look on his face, any lingering doubt McGee might have had about him being related to LT Ariadne Geist was immediately erased; that expression was all but identical to the one she had on her face when she was working on his computer a few hours before in the squad room.

Jin translated the first part of the conversation between Geist and Ye without any problems, his brows occasionally furrowing at an unfamiliar word, but continuing to report back in the almost-flat tone McGee was accustomed to hearing from translators.

The lance corporal hesitated after the 'pleasantries' were exchanged, lifting one side of the large headphones as he turned to McGee. "I don't think this is necessary," he said, an almost pained look on his face. McGee shook his head.

"We need everything they say to each other," he reminded the young Marine. Jin hesitated again before turning to face Dr. Geist, still standing behind the two chairs.

"I'm sorry, Jer," he said simply before sighing. Replacing the ear piece over his ear, he sighed as he turned back to face the monitors, and when he spoke again, his voice was even flatter than it had been previously. "'I am sure you told Dr. Geist that your pregnancy was the result of the first night after you returned,'" Jin translated for Ye, his jaw working in frustration at what he had to say. "'I imagine that would be easier for him to take than the thought of raising some bastard child from your actions while on an illegal mission of espionage.'"

"'I would tell you to go to hell, but you are on your way there already.'" It was a bit disconcerting to be watching the conversation on the monitor while listening to the English translation of the words; the two didn't line up at all. Ye's smirk had come before Jin reported back his sister's words.

"'It makes sense now why you were in such a hurry to leave,'" Jin continued. "'It would be much more difficult to explain to a physician why the dates of the pregnancy do not line up if you had waited much longer. So tell me, did you at least get good intelligence from your'…" Jin hesitated slightly, searching for the right word before settling with, "'fuck?'" The Marine's face was red, probably with both anger and embarrassment; that of his brother-in-law was entirely anger.

"I'll kill him myself," Jeremy Geist said angrily. "That bastard…" He couldn't even finish the thought, his jaw clenching tightly in his fury. McGee turned to him in alarm.

"He's just trying to get a rise out of her," he said, hoping that the surgeon had enough common sense to stay where he was and not burst out of the van in a homicidal rage. He doubted he would be able to stop him if he did; Dr. Geist easily had two or three inches on him and was in much better shape. "You have to trust that she knows what she's doing."

"I do," Jeremy replied, his voice still tight. His eyes were fixed on the monitor, his jaw still moving in anger. He didn't say anything further, his expression giving away nothing of what he was thinking other than the rage that was still painted there.

"'So what was it like?'" Jin continued translating for Ye. "'To go back to your old job of whoring for your country? No matter how they dress that up, that is what you were doing, correct? Does your husband know just how many men you have slept with for the sake of national security?'"

McGee kept Dr. Geist in his peripheral vision, ready to act if the surgeon did anything rash. He had no idea if anything the Chinese spy was saying was true, or if he was just saying it to get a rise out of Ariadne. To his surprise, Geist uncrossed his arms and leaned over closer to the monitor, an intense look on his face. He began speaking German, his voice low and forceful, his eyes focused on the image of his wife, a slight smile softening his expression as he spoke. McGee had no idea what he was saying, but he remained in that position even after he stopped speaking, his hands resting on the workbench as he leaned over, his expression no less intense despite the supporting smile he now wore.

And then something amazing happened. Even though McGee knew it wasn't possible, he could have sworn Ariadne had heard her husband's voice, because the quiet fury she had been wearing on her face disappeared, replaced with a knowing smirk. Until Jin translated, he had no idea what she was saying, but figured it had something to do with Jeremy as she held up her left hand briefly. "'You are just upset because me being pregnant means that there is a man who got where you tried unsuccessfully to get for nine months, and you know that it is the man who gave me this ring, just as you know that I would never do anything to hurt him.'" Jin paused slightly before he continued, "'And I know that you are upset by this, because there is no other reason for you to kill an officer just because she resembles my,'" Jin stopped here, both his mouth and finger moving as he tried to work out something that his sister had said. "'Wife of the younger brother of my husband'?" he finally decided on. He covered his microphone and turned to McGee with an apologetic look on his face. "The importance of certain family members is different in China than it is here. Things don't translate well. I think that's what she said."

"Yeah," Dr. Geist said absently, not explaining further. His eyes were still on the monitor, this time with a triumphant and proud look in them, and McGee couldn't miss the seemingly automatic way he twisted his wedding band on his finger. "She's got him. Just you wait. _Nobody_ holds anything out when it comes to Ariadne." He smirked slightly, crossing his arms over his chest as he straightened fully to a standing position. "And that includes present company."


	14. Chapter 14

**Loose Ends: Chapter 14**

* * *

Tony DiNozzo smiled down at the kid as handed over the large pretzel, relieved to see that there was no one else waiting to buy a snack. He had no idea how people did this day after day; it had only been a couple of hours, and already he was sure that he would never be able to get the smell of hot dogs and processed liquid cheese out of his hair and skin. How was it that Ziva got to be the woman walking aimlessly through the National Mall while paying more attention to the serious conversation she was having on the phone than her surroundings, Gibbs got to be the guy on a park bench with a newspaper, Abby was the overly excited tourist, and McGee was safe and warm in the van surrounded by his computer gear, while _he_ had to be the one dealing with processed foods?

Well, that didn't take much thought. Abby had to be out of the way, McGee had the corner on the geeky computer-stuff on the team, Gibbs was the team leader and therefore earned the right to sit down, and DiNozzo knew he didn't have the legs to be Ziva.

He smirked slightly at the thought before returning his attention to the front steps of the Museum of Natural History, blowing a frustrated stream of air through his lips at the scene that had remained pretty much unchanged since Ariadne Geist stepped out of the museum. "Ziva," he said in a tone demanding enough to be picked up by the small microphone he wore, "SitRep."

He could practically hear his partner rolling her eyes over the open comm line. "_Nothing has changed, Tony_," she replied.

"Please tell me she at least has a weapon on this guy." Although he had a pretty clear line of sight from his booth, she was closer and had the added benefit of being able to walk around and move her body to change her perspective, something she did now to shoot him an annoyed look before returning her attention to the museum steps.

"_A knife_," she replied. "_A weapon that I believe you have seen that she is quite proficient in_." He couldn't miss the smirk in her voice, and found himself smiling along with her. _"And I also have two weapons at the ready_." He was about to say something about one of her hands being occupied by a phone, but knew that, when it came to pulling an Annie Oakley and gunning down the bad guy, her holding a phone—with either hand—was fairly irrelevant. Still, there was just something about this whole mission he didn't like. Actually, pretty much everything about the mission went against his liking, from the decapitated second lieutenant to the mysterious NSA agent who appeared out of thin air and wouldn't explain anything to the surgeon husband who most definitely didn't want his wife out there, and all of it came back to them being in far over their heads.

"So," he said, more to hear himself talking than anything else. He wished he could shut up—distracting the other people on the comm line wasn't ever a good idea—but found that he just couldn't stop talking, "This a situation you've ever been in?"

"_No, Tony,_" Ziva replied mockingly. "_I make sure that my past targets are in no condition to come back and stake me_."

"Good point," he acknowledged. "Although I think I've told you before, it's 'stalk', not 'stake'."

"_New rule. If it doesn't have to do with giving Geist back-up, no talking._"

"Does that rule get a number?" DiNozzo asked automatically, grinning at his own joke.

"_Doing a good job at that food stand, DiNozzo. Want to make it a permanent position?_" Tony wondered if the light chuckle he heard actually came from Ziva's lips or if it was just in his head. He shook his head slightly at the thought and returned his attention to the museum, where everything looked exactly the same as it had since LT Geist descended those stairs, and again, couldn't shake the nagging voice in the back of his head telling him that they hadn't done enough and this mission was going to end in a fiery ball of flames worthy of all the special effects a Hollywood studio could manage.

He just wondered how much of his worry came from the fact that from that distance, with her confidant stance and halo of dark curls, Lieutenant Ariadne Geist looked just Mossad Officer Ziva David.

---

Colonel Ye Xuanze—whose real name was Lin Ming, practically the Chinese version of 'John Smith'—had never been caught because he was the best. He knew computers, he knew people, he knew languages and accents, he knew weapons, he was paranoid to the point of being obsessive, and he was backed by the government of the largest nation on Earth.

And most people in that government didn't know he even existed. Those who did, didn't know his name.

All of that was before he met his match.

When three months had passed after Dr. Helen Chang's departure from China, three months with no contact, when she was supposed to be returning from closing her father's estate in Greece, he realized he had been played. His first thought after that realization was actually triumph—he had thought there was something off about a Greece-born, American-trained cryptographer appearing out of nowhere to offer her services to the People's Republic of China from the beginning and had been against the decision of his superiors to allow her access to Chinese intel. His next feeling was disbelief, because after this initial distrust, he had been just as fooled as those who hired her and allowed her in, bringing her into his inner circle.

Nobody played him for the fool, which was why his next feeling was anger, followed quickly by an all-consuming mission to figure out who she really was and to get his vengeance. It turned out that that was easier said than done. Careful examination of every website that had mention of 'Helen Chang' by some of China's foremost computer experts determined that each of them had been created within the last two years, and he knew at that point that she was backed by a force as fierce as—or more so—his own. Running searches of her picture through the internet and every secured database he could get access to revealed nothing, telling him that she was an operative at a level that dictated that whoever she worked for made great efforts to make sure she didn't exist. He continued searching, sending the photographs he had of her to every intelligence agent he trusted, at least at a superficial level, and was flooded with replies, coming up with almost as many names as he had—Anya Factor, Stephanie Lee, Rhianna Barraclough, Natalie Vicente, and several others. She had more passports—many of which were legitimately issued by their national authorities—than some small countries, and he resumed his search anew, determined to find something. Anything.

Whoever had been erasing her past and removing her picture from the internet missed one.

It was an easy one to miss—the sports section of an obscure newspaper serving an area around Philadelphia, a story about two local former high school students, both of which had gone onto service academies and were on varsity soccer teams. In the picture of the student at the United States Naval Academy, cheering in the background, was a slightly younger version of Helen Chang. There was no mention of this fan's name, but she was wearing the uniform of a midshipman, telling him that she had also attended the Naval Academy. Hacking into records of former midshipmen didn't reveal any results, which didn't really surprise him.

So he searched for that student in the photograph, the one who was the subject of the article, this Midshipman Jeremias Geist, and was suddenly opened up a world of information.

Midshipman Geist had become Ensign Geist, and then Lieutenant Geist after he graduated from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences with a medical degree. Almost two years after that graduation, there was a marriage license tying him to Lieutenant Ariadne Jin. Even though he couldn't find pictures of this LT Jin, the combination of the Greek and Chinese names told him that he had found the right person.

He had to find her. And he had to punish her for what she had done. No one made him look like an idiot.

Since he knew he wouldn't get anything by searching for information on LT Ariadne Geist, he focused his attention on LT Jeremias Geist, MD, and he found the second weakness in whoever this adversary was he was up against: they apparently didn't see the need to censor anything about Dr. Geist. In addition to newspaper articles written about the former soccer player, he found his complete background, connections to his family, and probably most importantly, where he was stationed. The surgeon was the oldest of three children born to a German immigrant and his Vietnamese-American wife and had a fairly nondescript childhood, staying out of trouble. After the Naval Academy and medical school, he was assigned to National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where he had remained since. As there were no frequent flights across the country or any other indications that he was stationed away from his wife, that is where Lin focused his attention.

"And I know that you are upset by this, because there is no other reason for you to kill an officer just because she resembles the wife of the younger brother of my husband." Her expression was smug, her green eyes—those remarkable green eyes that had fascinated him since the first time he had seen them—shining with determination, and he realized he didn't know this woman. Helen Chang had been different than the average Chinese intelligence agent, but not in the same ways he was seeing now. She had been somewhat detached, isolated from the other cryptographers by both her background and by the fact that the average man who became a cryptographer was far too intimated by a beautiful woman to speak to her more than absolutely necessary to do their jobs. The Greek upbringing and American training in her cover identity had made her more confident when speaking to her superiors than most Chinese woman would have ordinarily been, but definitely not to the extent of the confident, arrogant woman standing in front of him now.

"That was not my original plan," he replied, not to be deterred by her smirk or the knife she held expertly in her hand. "That was a coincidence I decided to take advantage of."

"So what was the original plan?"

Now it was his turn to smirk, his eyes cold. "A stolen car with military decals and a uniform of an officer of the United States Army go far in getting on a base. The guards at the Forest Glen Annex of Walter Reed barely glanced at the ID card I offered them. It could have been a business card identifying me as an international assassin for how much attention they paid it. From there, it would have been a shuttle to the medical center in Bethesda."

To her credit, her expression didn't change at all, although he didn't miss the subtle readjustment of the knife in her hand. "My husband."

"I figured there would be no easier way to draw you out. To have killed him would have only been a bonus."

They stared at each other for a long minute. "You seem to be very angry at me," she finally said, her tone slightly mocking. When they first started talking, her voice was laced with the same Greek accent she had when she was in China. After the first few sentences, that disappeared, to be replaced by one he recognized as belonging to those of Chinese descent in California. "Did I do something to upset you?"

His smile was just as cold as hers had been. "There is only room for one at the top. How am I supposed to get any work done while you are still out there?"

He barely had time to register the smirk that crossed her face, and then things happened so fast that there was no way he could have registered them.


	15. Chapter 15

**Loose Ends: Chapter 15**

* * *

Lance Corporal Tomas Jin had known that his only sister's job was dangerous and confidential since he was fifteen and she was twenty-two and graduating from the Naval Academy, but he hadn't realized just how dangerous and confidential it was until he found himself sitting in the back of a surveillance van, surrounded by audiovisual equipment and listening to Ariadne's voice in his ear. He hadn't wanted to know, to be honest, and now, wished he could go back to not knowing. He was pretty sure his brother-in-law was thinking the same thing, but this wasn't the time to be concerned with the obvious tension rolling off Jeremy.

And to think, a few hours ago, his only concerns had been staying awake in Music Theory, memorizing new jazz riffs, and getting the attention of the beautiful, talented, and intense Private Rodriguez.

"_A stolen car with military decals and a uniform of an officer of the United States Army go far in getting on a base. The guards at the Forest Glen Annex of Walter Reed barely glanced at the ID card I offered them,_" he heard the mysterious Chinese man say to Ariadne. He relayed the message automatically, the man's perfectly unaccented Mandarin still coming in clearly from Ariadne's microphone. It was a bit strange to hear that accent—almost as strange as that accent his sister had when she first started talking; he wondered if he'd remember to make fun of her for that later—which he had only ever heard before from one of his Chinese professors in college. The Chinese he grew up hearing from his father and grandfather was very Americanized. And the Chinese his brother Mike attempted to speak when Tomas visited him during the week between basic and music school was very broken.

He continued translating, trying not to think about the fact that his brother-in-law was standing right behind him as he described how a Chinese spy wanted to kill him. _That_ had the potential to make their next Christmas dinner rather awkward.

Jin frowned and closed his eyes as he tried to figure out how to translate a certain idiom, which was why he completely missed what it was that made Jeremy startle and call out, "Ariadne!" His eyes flew open to the monitor just in time to see a dark-haired woman with her gun drawn and pointed at the man Ariadne had been talking to—and judging by the fact that he was currently sprawled out on the ground, the man Ariadne had taken out.

He didn't even realize until Jeremy suddenly darted out of the van that Ariadne was also on the ground.

---

McGee was staring at the monitors displaying LT Ariadne Geist and the man she had identified as Colonel Ye Xuanze so intensely that if he had telekinesis, they surely would have exploded, and he still had no idea what he was looking for. He had Tony and Ziva—with the occasional interjection by Gibbs—chatting in one ear, Tomas Jin's monotone translations echoing in his other ear, and he wished he could swap his brain out for one with a higher processing speed.

He smiled slightly at the ongoing repartee between Tony and Ziva, despite Gibbs' warnings, neither missing an opening to poke fun at the other. McGee couldn't even begin to guess the number of hours he had spent being amused by their quick comebacks and easy banter. Now, though, wasn't the time to allow them to distract him, not while he was the only link between what LT Geist was saying and the people with the guns. "'A stolen car with military decals and a uniform of an officer of the United States Army go far in getting on a base. The guards at the Forest Glen Annex of Walter Reed barely glanced at the ID card I offered them,'" Lance Corporal Jin translated for Colonel Ye. McGee frowned and adjusted the microphone of his headset.

"Ye just admitted to killing Dailey," he relayed to Gibbs, Tony, and Ziva. His attention completely focused on the screen, he barely registered Tony's question about proceeding or Gibbs' instructions to wait for a signal from Geist—a signal they _didn't_ have the time to pre-arrange.

"_Get ready._" He blinked at Ziva's sudden no-nonsense tone, and frowned as he tried to figure out what she had seen that he hadn't. "_She is about to make her move_." As if on cue, Ariadne Geist suddenly shifted all of her weight to her left leg, bringing her right foot, followed by her left foot, up for some double-kick move more fitting for a kung-fu movie—or one of Ziva's workouts in the gym—than from a pregnant woman on the steps of a Smithsonian museum.

There was something just a little bit off about her landing, though, her right ankle collapsing under her as it came into contact with the ground, sending her sprawling out on the ground just as Ziva entered the view of the camera, gun drawn and fixed on the collapsed form of Colonel Ye. "Ariadne!" Jeremy Geist startled, turning toward the rear doors of the van before McGee could process everything that was happening.

"Dr. Geist!" he shouted in protest, lunging to try to catch him, but he was too late. The surgeon was on the ground sprinting directly toward the line of fire, toward his wife, before McGee had even left his chair.

---

"_I do not know, Tony_," Officer Ziva David said into her phone with a slight smirk on her face. "_I think a career in the food services would suit you well._"

"Thanks, Sweetcheeks," he replied dryly, "but I like my current job." He could practically feel Gibbs' headslap at the ongoing side conversation, but their boss didn't say anything as Ziva gave a soft chuckle. DiNozzo turned and smiled at a pair of co-eds out for a stroll on the Mall, but they didn't head his way.

"_They are too young for you,_" Ziva commented.

"Just trying to be friendly and get customers, Ziva," he answered automatically.

"_Ye just admitted to killing Dailey_," McGee said abruptly into their ears. DiNozzo watched as Ziva switched her phone from her right ear to her left. The move looked completely natural, but he knew that she was doing it to free up her right hand. That alone was enough to tell him that things were going to be going down relatively soon.

"We moving in, Boss?" he asked.

"_Wait for Geist's signal,_" Gibbs replied. DiNozzo frowned as he tried to figure out what that signal could be; he and Abby had left in a Charger before one could be arranged between the lieutenant and the NCIS agents. He just hoped that they _had_ one, and Gibbs and Ziva knew what it was.

He returned his attention to LT Geist, who appeared completely relaxed and at ease with whatever was going on in front of that museum, as if it happened every day, and he found himself wondering if this had been a normal interaction with her coworkers until recently. He thought about the hard glint in her eyes as she described her mission to China, and again when she outlined her plan for bringing in Ye, and decided that yes, this would have been a normal day at the office for her.

Then he thought about that worry on her face as she kept glancing at the elevator doors and the relief he saw there when her husband stepped through said doors, and knew that she didn't want that to be her life any more. He couldn't help but think about those two competing aspects of her personality—the trained spy and assassin, and the concerned wife and future mother—and wondered how she could justify living both lives.

His eyes went from the distant form of the NSA agent to the almost-as-distant form of his partner. At McGee's announcement of their suspect's confession, she had wandered closer to the museum, still appearing to be completely focused on her conversation on the phone, but he knew her well enough that he could see the tension in her body, like a cat ready to pounce. He was about to question her on what she was seeing when she beat him to it. "_Be ready,_" she said. Her voice was low, but there was no mistaking the order in them. "_She is about to make her move_." He frowned and returned his attention to Geist, trying to figure out what Ziva had seen that he hadn't.

And then he saw it.

Ziva was already running toward Geist and Ye with her gun drawn when the lieutenant jumped up for some sort of crazy-ninja-double-kick move that he doubted she learned from a self-defense course at her local gym, catching Ye in the chest and the head and knocking him to the ground. "Federal agents!" he yelled as he ran toward them, his gun also drawn. He was almost to where Ziva had her weapon trained on the collapsed form of Ye when sudden movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. His adrenaline still pumping, he snapped his gun toward the rapidly approaching figure.

---

Ariadne Geist knew the double kick was a bad idea about a nanosecond after her left foot lifted from the ground, but that wasn't exactly the best time to change her mind. So she went with it and hoped for the best.

Her right foot connected with Ye's chest, and she had to fight to keep the pain that shot through her body at the contact to slow her momentum as she brought her left foot up to slam into his temple. Time seemed to slow to a crawl after that: she could feel her right foot touching the ground, followed almost immediately by the protest of ligaments that had already had too much as she tried to compensate for the change in her center of gravity. The looseness of those ligaments caused her to twist a little bit too far, forcing her knee and hip into positions they didn't like, and then, with everything still moving in slow motion, she felt those joints give away, sending her falling to the left, her left hip and shoulder slamming into the ground. The pain overwhelming her other senses, she wasn't sure if her eyes were still open at that point, didn't even know if she had cried out or remained silent.

She was pretty sure she heard Tony DiNozzo shout out that they were federal agents, and then, as if compensating for their lapse, her senses became hyperactive, every sight brighter and clearer, every sound louder. She watched as Ziva pulled a set of handcuffs from her belt and roughly turned Ye to position his hands behind his back to be cuffed. Gibbs was standing over them, his gun pointed at the Chinese man who was in no condition to fight back. DiNozzo was on the other side, and Ariadne watched with something almost akin to interest as he held his gun unwavering despite the seemingly very loud breathing as he tried to control the rush of adrenaline that she understood all too well.

Then she heard another set of footsteps, running toward them, accompanied by more loud, anxious breathing, and her hand, still gripping the knife that was incredibly lethal when she held it and even more so when it was released, came up as her head did to see who was approaching, wondering how she could have missed noticing that Ye had someone watching his back. DiNozzo apparently heard those footsteps, too, as his breath hitched, his gun snapping over toward the approaching figure.

She didn't know if her brain was moving faster than usual or slower than it should be, but she recognized that form, knew that long and powerful stride. "No!" she shouted, and she wasn't sure if she was yelling at DiNozzo or her husband, but she hoped whichever it was listened.

---

Sometimes his wife was an idiot.

Sure, she was a genius, definitely one of the smartest people Jeremy Geist knew, with an innate ability to learn languages, an understanding of computers that was seemingly only matched by those autistic Romanian orphans of lore, and an IQ that was measured in the mid-170's on one of those on-line IQ tests he had her take for fun, but sometimes, she was an idiot.

Like when standing on worn museum steps doing some sort of kung-fu move that he knows isn't a kung-fu move on an armed assassin with an ankle that hasn't been a hundred percent since she was an eighteen-year-old plebe at the Naval Academy—while twenty weeks pregnant. That was pretty idiotic.

In hindsight, running out of the van toward her—and four other armed people—was probably just as idiotic, if not more so, than what she had just done, but the sight of her collapsed on those steps was just too much for him. He never made it a secret to her that he didn't like her job—her old job, now, he supposed, although it never seemed like it would be an old job with her. The job was why they had parted ways when he graduated from Annapolis, and how they came back together four years later, when a bullet in her shoulder landed her in his ER, required a stay in his ICU, and called for his skills at CPR when her heart stopped beating. He'll never forget the panic he had felt at that moment, and they hadn't even been on speaking terms at that time.

He thought then that nothing would be worse than her dying still thinking that he hated her. Now he knew that he was wrong. That would be nothing compared to losing his wife and the child he had yet to meet.

So when he was watching her on that screen in that van after listening to his brother-in-law relay her entire conversation, he stopped using the rational part of his brain and just reacted to the sight of her collapsed form, running from the van before he could even think about the number of weapons that were currently surrounding his wife. He was pretty sure he yelled her name, but wasn't sure if that was before or after he left the van, running with the stride that had gotten him to the ball first more often than not on the soccer pitch.

"No!" He registered Ariadne's voice and stopped so quickly he almost fell over, his eyes widening as he registered Agent DiNozzo's Sig Sauer leveled on him. A heartbeat later, the NCIS agent's eyes also widened. The way he quickly lowered the weapon and seemed to struggle catching his breath was enough to let Jeremy know just how close he had been to changing his descriptor of his actions from 'idiotic' to 'fatal'.

"Ari," he breathed a second later, barely registering the grimace that crossed DiNozzo's features and not caring what it was about. He rushed forward to help his wife into a sitting position. "My God, Ari, that was stupid," he finally managed, his pulse only beginning to normalize after hearing her chuckle at those words.

"And running into an armed arrest, Jer?" Her tone was teasing, which was enough to let him know that everything would be okay. He took a shaky breath and closed his eyes, resting his forehead against hers as he fisted her hair at the nape of her neck and just stayed there for a moment, trying to catch his breath and barely able to move.

"How's your ankle?" he finally asked once his pulse slowed to a reasonable pace and he felt that he had recovered enough to speak. He pulled away to assess her reaction to the question, his eyes traveling down her body to rest on her right foot.

She rolled it experimentally a few times. "A bit sore," she admitted, "but I don't think I did any permanent damage."

"I must have missed your graduation from medical school," he said dryly, making her roll her eyes.

"Get it checked out back at NCIS." Jeremy glanced up to see Gibbs standing over him, Colonel Ye in restraints at his side. "I'll take the translator and Ye back in the van. Get the Chargers back. Don't care who drives what." He walked off before anyone could protest, and Dr. Geist had to work to hide his smirk. If being in a van with a uniformed Marine who could look fierce when he wanted to and Agent Gibbs who was fierce at baseline wasn't enough to intimidate Ye into cooperation, he doubted anything could.

"I'll take Abby," McGee volunteered, having approached from the van. Nobody protested that plan, so he shrugged and went off in search of the forensic scientist, leaving DiNozzo, Ziva, and the Geists.

"Can you walk?" Jeremy asked Ariadne as he pulled her to her feet. She frowned slightly and took a few experimental steps.

"Yeah, I'll manage."

"Good," he said with a slight smile. "Because you're getting too heavy to carry." She gave him a mock glare and punched him lightly in the arm, and he knew that everything would be normal again. Well, normal for them, and that was all he could ask for.


	16. Chapter 16

**Loose Ends: Chapter 16**

* * *

The ride back to NCIS was silent, which suited Tony DiNozzo's mood just fine. He knew he should be happy—they just solved the case, caught a bad guy that apparently every intelligence agency around the globe had been searching for, and did it all early enough that they would be able to finish their paperwork and get out of there in time for dinner. Yet every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was the panicked look on Dr. Geist's face as he stumbled to a halt, could see the way the doctor registered just how close he had been to ending up with a bullet in his chest. DiNozzo would be lying if he said he never made mistakes at work, but shooting a surgeon who was just looking after his wife was too much.

The Geists had retreated down to Autopsy to allow Dr. Geist to examine his wife's ankle in a quasi-medical setting and get a set of x-rays, all while probably being subjected to stories of a Scottish medical examiner's experiences… somewhere, doing something. Tony knew he was distracted when he couldn't even think of a humorous ending to that idea, but not even that realization was enough to snap him out of it. He was getting concerned looks across the bullpen from his partner, but he just ignored them, finishing the last details of the Dailey murder file—the easiest thing he had to write, much easier than his official report—in what had to be record time.

He was making copies of the paperwork when Ziva somehow managed to angle herself between him and the copy machine. "Tony—," she began.

"Don't," he interrupted, the syllable harsher than he intended. She blinked but quickly recovered.

"The case was successful," she said. "We solved Lieutenant Dailey's murder and helped catch a foreign operative. I do not know why—"

"I almost shot a surgeon," he interrupted. "A _surgeon_." She frowned.

"But you did not."

"But I _almost_ did," he argued. "I was too damned close—." He cut himself off with a shake of his head, unable to finish that thought.

"You did nothing wrong," Ziva said emphatically. "You perceived a threat and reacted to it and analyzed the situation, stopping yourself from acting when you realized that there was no danger."

He sighed, his head down but his eyes fixed on nothing in particular. "You didn't see the look on his face," he finally said softly, shaking his head with a dark chuckle. "A doctor, Ziva. I almost shot a Navy doctor because he was trying to protect his _wife_."

"He should not have left the van," she argued. His eyes finally met hers, seeing the confusion at his conflict in those dark orbs. He shook his head.

"He loves her," he said simply. "Can you honestly say you wouldn't have done the same thing if something happened to the person you love?"

"No," she said quietly, honestly. "I can not." They stood there silently for a long minute, eyes locked on each other from only inches away, neither giving away anything about what they were thinking in their expressions. Then she reached up and gently touched his cheek. "He is lucky that it was you," she said simply. At his blink of confusion, she continued, "It is as Lt. Geist said, the right tool for the right job. You reacted quickly and lowered your weapon. Had it been another agent, he would likely have ended up with a bullet in his chest." He nodded slightly, but was still unconvinced. He understood what she was saying, but she didn't see the look on Dr. Geist's face in those seconds.

"I have some more paperwork to do," he finally said, pulling away from her and collecting his copied reports before returning to his desk. He could almost feel her hurt at the way he turned away, but he was still too mad at himself to care.

---

The voices in Autopsy were nothing but a murmur as Ziva David stepped out of the elevator in the basement, only becoming clearer as the doors slid open. "—relaxin, a hormone that increases in pregnancy. The main purpose of this is, of course, to loosen the ligaments of the pelvic structure to facilitate childbirth, but it also has the effect of loosening other ligaments, including the ones that you had previously injured in your ankle. I'm afraid that the combination of these factors—"

"Thanks, Dr. Mallard," LT Ariadne Geist interrupted with a smile. "I'm sure I'll be hearing about it from my husband, as well as my OB when I go in for my appointment tomorrow. It feels better, honestly."

"Very well, my dear," Ducky replied, also smiling. He glanced up to see Ziva standing in the doorway. "I will leave you to your husband and his gentle reminders, then."

"Nagging, Dr. Mallard," she corrected with a grin. "He nags."

"Do not," Jeremy Geist replied automatically from where he stood, leaning against the light box currently displaying a set of ankle x-rays. "I still think we should go into NNMC and—"

"See?" Ariadne interrupted. "Nagging." She twisted from her seat on the stainless steel autopsy table, leaving her legs dangling off the side, and saw Ziva for the first time. She nodded. "Officer David."

"Lt. Geist," Ziva replied with a nod of her own before turning to Ducky. "If you do not mind, Ducky, I would like a few words with the Geists."

"Of course," Ducky replied smoothly. "I have a great deal of paperwork to finish on our unfortunate Marine lieutenant anyway." He turned and left the large room without another word, and Ziva turned back to Jeremy and Ariadne Geist.

"Who do you work for?" she asked without preamble after the door closed behind Ducky, taking a step closer to the lieutenants. Her eyes traveled to Jeremy, uncertain of how much he knew, but his expression didn't change in the slightest at the question.

"NSA," Ariadne replied smoothly. "But to answer the question I'm sure you're asking, we're a rather loosely organized international conglomerate of intelligence agents. There's no official name, not really. Amongst ourselves, we call it the Network." She saw the look on Ziva's face and shook her head slightly. "Jer knows. Well, he knows enough to satisfy him."

"I know a little bit more than just enough to satisfy," he said with a snort, crossing his arms over his chest. "Almost into the realm of 'too much information'."

"Oh, calm down," his wife shot back before returning her attention to Ziva. "You've actually worked with us before—my former partner, actually, before she was my partner. In those days, she was…" Her voice trailed off, her eyes closing as she tried to remember. "Rachel McKenna? I think that's the name she used when working with Mossad agents."

"Raneigh McKenna?" Ziva asked with a frown. "The MI-6 operative from Scotland?" She remembered the tall blond woman and her sharp wit, matched only by her sharp tongue when reprimanding her fellow agents. It had only been one mission in Russia, but it was enough for Jen Shepard to declare that she never wanted to work with MI-6 again.

Ariadne smirked. "Yes, except she's really CIA and was born and raised in Colorado." Her expression became serious again. "There were some who wanted to recruit you after that mission, but they felt that your ties to a then-deputy director of Mossad made you too much of a liability. But I'm happy to say, after tying up that last loose end today, that those days are now behind me." She shot a grin over to her husband, who smiled slightly in reply. "For good," she added emphatically for his benefit.

"How…" Ziva trailed off, not knowing how to ask the question on her mind. "How do you walk away?"

If Ariadne had any question about what Ziva was asking, she gave no indication. "I was shot on a mission a couple of years ago," she said, pulling aside the fabric from her left shoulder to reveal an extensive display of poorly-healed, angry scars. "It was bad. Destroyed a couple of bones in the shoulder, which had to be replaced by some sort of fake bone plaster that the orthopods tried explaining to me but I really don't understand. Tore through some muscles, damaged some nerves. I got all sorts of infections and spent far too much time in the hospital. No offense," she said over her shoulder to her husband, who just shrugged. "They weren't sure if I'd ever be able to use my arm again."

"You healed well," Ziva commented. She certainly hadn't noticed any problems when the NSA agent had been using that arm to point a gun at Tony.

"Yes," Ariadne replied with a nod. She glanced over at her husband again. "On paper, the medical issues were why I was transferred out, but that wasn't really it. It was a lot of rehab, but I eventually regained all my strength and function. It was Jeremy." The surgeon gave her a quick grin before she returned to Ziva. "We started dating at the Academy, but parted ways after he graduated."

"We didn't 'part ways'," Jeremy interrupted. "Your employers orchestrated a break-up."

"Either way," Ariadne continued, waving off his comments, "when I ended up in his hospital and he had me as a captive audience for those months, I realized that I didn't want to go back. And the longer you're away from the spy game, the more you get to experience everything that that life can't offer and the more you'll do to keep out of it. I think you know what I'm talking about." Ziva blinked in surprise, but Ariadne didn't give her a chance to say anything. "Everything I needed to know to do my job and do it well came back very quickly when they sent me to China, but that didn't mean I was happy to be there. I never thought the suburban dream and the white picket fence was for me, but…" She trailed off and shrugged. "Getting pregnant… That wasn't an accident that resulted from too much sex when I came home for my 'furlough'. I was tired of putting off things that _I_ wanted because I was too busy doing things that other people wanted me to do." There was something meaningful in her gaze, despite the neutral expression on her face. "Of course, none of those people was my father," she added softly, and Ziva felt her face flush at the realization that Geist had her figured out. "Anyway," Ariadne continued, her voice now light and a smile on her face, "I guess what I'm saying is that if there's something you want, go get it." Just as she finished that sentence, the Autopsy doors slid open again, revealing Tony with Jeremy's laptop bag in hand. Ariadne quirked an eyebrow in Ziva's direction, but didn't say anything.

"You left this at the McGoo's desk," DiNozzo said, handing over the bag.

"Thanks," Jeremy replied as he took it. "And thanks for not shooting me." At DiNozzo's expression, he was quick to add, "I'm serious, actually. Running out there while you guys were arresting whoever that was, was not the smartest thing I could have done."

"I can understand why you did it," Tony said. "Just, don't do it again." There was a stretch of almost-awkward silence that fell over Autopsy. "I have to ask," DiNozzo said, breaking it. "What's the deal with the thing with the ring?"

"Oh," Jeremy said, sounding a bit surprised. He glanced down at the gold band on his left ring before before looking over at his wife, who was smirking up at him. "I can't have anything on my hands or wrists when I'm scrubbed in for surgery, so I put my ring on my dogtags every morning before heading into the OR. Ariadne puts it back where it belongs when I come home."

"Symbolically putting _him_ back where _he_ belongs," Ariadne joked. Her husband chuckled slightly before his expression became serious.

"I got so used to her doing that, that when she was gone, it was almost a month before I realized that my ring was missing," he admitted. He looked over at Ariadne, and it was like he was speaking only to her. "It wasn't the only thing that I was missing," he said softly. His wife smiled slightly, almost sadly, as she reached over and squeezed his fingers briefly before releasing his hand. Jeremy smiled down at her before turning back to Tony and Ziva. "Thank you, both of you, for everything today." He gave a tight smile, and they all knew exactly what he was trying to say but couldn't find the words for.

"Take care," Ziva said after a moment of almost-awkward silence. Jeremy nodded and reached for his wife's hand, giving it a squeeze before helping her down from the table. They left without another word, his arm draped across his wife's shoulders and hers wrapped around his waist, looking very much like they were just another couple and it was the end of just another day.


	17. Chapter 17: Epilogue

**Loose Ends: Epilogue**

_A/N: Yes, the epilogue... this is the final chapter. Thank you, everyone, who read and enjoyed and reviewed this. I had fun writing it, and I'm hoping it won't be too long until I give you something else :)_

* * *

Tony DiNozzo frowned as he stared at the computer screen, trying to figure out how to start his report. He figured the beginning would be the best place, but he just couldn't figure out what the beginning was. The call from Petty Officer Sanders about 2ndLt Dailey? The events that led Dailey to be in Rock Creek Park without a head? LT Ariadne Geist's mission in China? The intelligence that prompted whoever Geist worked for to send her there? He gave a frustrated sigh as he deleted the one line he had written.

"Are you ready yet, Tony?" He looked up in surprise at the impatient tone, to find himself staring at a certain Goth scientist, her bright red lips thin in an expression of disapproval, her eyes wide with expectation, and sighed again.

"I've barely started," he confessed. "Go on without me. I wouldn't be much fun, anyway."

"Tony," she protested, her voice barely out of the range of a whine. "You're always fun."

He gave a brief grin. "Thanks, Abby," he replied. "But not this time."

"Take off, DiNozzo," Gibbs ordered as he strode by his senior field agent's desk on the way to his own. "Got your report." DiNozzo frowned as his eyes turned to his computer screen, the blank reporting form still displayed there. He glanced up to see the slight smirk on his partner's face as she began quietly collecting her gear to take off for the day and understood what was going on. He wondered how many bad assignments and long hours on stake-outs it would take to make up for this. He hated being in Ziva's debt, because she always managed to find a way to collect.

"So now you don't have any excuses," Abby declared in a no-nonsense tone. "Come on, get your stuff. Chop, chop. We don't have all night."

"Geez, Abs," he commented, finally giving into her demands. "What's the hurry?"

"What's the hurry?" she repeated incredulously. "_What's the hurry?_ We're celebrating the end of another case, that's the hurry!"

"Abby found a new place she wants to try out," McGee filled in from his desk as he, too, was clearing the remnants of the case from his desk. "But she's being surprisingly close-lipped about it."

"You'll see when we get there," Abby said in a tone that told DiNozzo that wasn't the first time she said those words to the junior field agent.

"I am ready, Abby," Ziva declared, slinging her bag over her shoulder as she finished buttoning her coat. Tony frowned slightly at that well-fitted black leather jacket; how had he not noticed _that_ before? He finally lifted his eyes to her face to see her giving him an odd look, so he covered up his previous staring with one of the most blatant leers he had ever given a woman. She just rolled her eyes and moved away from her desk, toward the elevators. Of course, watching her walk away could be just as nice. "Stop staring at my ass, Tony," she said calmly, without even turning her head to confirm that he _had_ been staring at her ass.

"What makes you think I was?" he shot back, digging his own jacket out of the bottom drawer of his desk. He frowned at it; it would be getting too cold soon for the light-weight Ohio State windbreaker, a fact which made him strangely sad every year.

"Are you saying you were not?" Ziva asked in reply, finally turning to give him a smirk, a teasing glint in her eyes.

"Oh, no," he said quickly as he joined her in front of the elevators. "This is one of those questions that there's no right answer to. Either I admit that I was staring at your ass, which makes me a pig, or I claim that I wasn't, which makes you ask what I don't find attractive about you. I'm not playing that game, David. Not when I know you have at least three weapons on you right now." She smirked again but didn't say anything, remaining silent as the elevator took the four down to the level of the parking garage.

Since Abby still wasn't sharing where she was taking them, they all piled into her hearse, which she assured them just had all four tired filled and wouldn't be getting a flat that night, although Tony somehow doubted it. He hating riding in her vehicle, mostly because he somehow always got stuck in the backseat, which was far too small for anyone taller than the forensic botanist Abby used to date. He angled his legs for more room, earning him a mock glare and small kick—although, even a small kick could be painful when that woman was wearing those shoes—from Ziva.

They had been driving for about twenty minutes, mostly laughing about the shirt Jimmy Palmer wore to the office before changing into scrubs two days in a row last week, when curiosity got the best of DiNozzo. "Abby," he asked, exasperation sneaking into his voice, "where are we going?"

"To a bar, Tony," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"But _where?_ Mexico? We're nowhere near the city anymore."

She shrugged a shoulder, her eyes not wavering from the road. "There's this jazz bar I wanted to check out," she told them.

"I'm pretty sure DC has jazz bars," DiNozzo said, not giving in. "Why aren't we going to one of _those?_"

Another shrug, then, "I heard good things about this place. Quit complaining, Tony. Don't you trust me?" He grumbled something not even he understood, earning him a chuckle from Ziva. He knew when he wasn't going to get anything, though, so he let it go, deciding it was time to start pumping McGee for information about the probie's date the weekend before, and after a few minutes of listening silently, Ziva jumped in with her own questions. By the time they arrived in Quantico, he was feeling almost back to his old self.

---

Ziva shook out her dark curls as she stepped into the bar to the strains of Duke Ellington, mentally cursing the cold wind that seemed to have come from nowhere to whip through Quantico in the time between Abby parking the hearse and their walk to the front door of the jazz club. "Cold, Sweetcheeks?" Tony asked teasingly, slinging his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to him for a brief second. She made a face at him.

"You would be too, had you not used me as a shield against the wind," she shot back as she elbowed him lightly in the stomach. He grinned.

"Now I know for sure it wasn't true," he said. She frowned in confusion, causing his grin to widen. "You couldn't have killed Houdini, if that's the best you got."

She snorted. "That is nowhere near my best, Tony, but if you would like me to demonstrate…" She let her words trail off with a quirk of her eyebrows, earning her a chuckle in response as he tilted his head in toward the restaurant, where Abby and McGee had already gone to scope out a table.

They were sliding into the booth before Ziva glanced up at the group on the stage, frowning slightly at the twenty-something-year-old guy at the piano, his dark high-and-tight haircut alone giving him away as a Marine, which his long and lean build definitely didn't argue against. He had a small, almost knowing smile on his face as his hands danced over the keys in a way that Ziva hadn't seen since her own piano teacher, years ago, but none of that was what had gotten her attention. There was something about his features, his dark and almost slanted eyes, even that quirk in his smile, that was very familiar. "That is Lt. Geist's brother, no?" she finally asked. McGee frowned in wonder.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" he asked. "Tomas Jin. He didn't arrive at NCIS until after you and Lt. Geist already left."

She shrugged and nodded toward the waitress heading toward them. "He resembles her," she said simply. The other three turned toward the stage and frowned.

"I'm not seeing it," Tony finally said. She snorted.

"And you call yourselves investigators," she scoffed. The resemblance wasn't too obvious, but the fact that Abby had dragged them to Quantico to listen to jazz meant that there was something about this particular jazz group, and it wasn't too difficult to make the connection to their last case.

Their drinks came after they resumed their teasing of McGee, which the junior agent took with his standard good humor. The music was an eclectic mix of jazz styles, ranging from ragtime to modern jazz to Dixieland to the highly technical, syncopated rhythms of bebop and hard bop that showed the talent of each of the members of the young Marine jazz band on stage. In between sips of her mojito and chuckles at McGee's expense, Ziva felt her eyes scanning the bar in a way that had become involuntary after her years of training, constantly checking out her environment and filing away changes as they occurred. She hadn't seen anything surprising, mostly people who were obviously either Marines or FBI agents—a description that fit the majority of people around Quantico—when her eyes fell on one couple at a darkened table near the back. Ariadne Geist had obviously chosen the seats—from where the NSA agent sat, she had a view of all possible exits, no blind spots where 'bad guys' could be hiding. Ziva wondered if Dr. Geist knew how his wife thought about such things.

"Okay, as much fun as it is to impress you with music that there's no possible way to dance to, let's get people moving." Ziva raised her eyebrows slightly as she returned her attention to the stage, where Tomas Jin was speaking into the microphone at his piano, an almost teasing smile on his face while he took a sip out of a bottle of water. "Everyone who knows the Charleston, get out here. For those of you who don't, get to the dance floor anyway. It's easy to pick up." He gave another quick grin before capping the water bottle and setting it aside, his hands beginning to play the almost-ragtime rhythm of the 1920's dance. "Rodriguez, that means you, too," he added with a large wink, much to the amusement of a large table near the middle of the room. After a few beats, the rest of the band joined in to the song Ziva recognized as the namesake of the dance.

"Come on, Ziva!" Abby said excitedly, draining the last of her drink with one gulp as she left the booth. She had to lean over Tony to tug at the sleeve of Ziva's jacket, but she didn't let that stop her.

A brief look of panic crossed Ziva's face, making Tony chuckle into his beer as he slid out of the booth to allow Ziva to exit. "You do not strike me as the swing dancing type, Abby," she said, reluctantly rising to join the scientist.

"Please," Abby scoffed in reply. "I grew up in New Orleans. We did this in gym." Ziva sighed and shrugged out of her jacket before following Abby drag her out to the dance floor.

She hadn't danced the Charleston since she learned it in a dance class when she was twelve, but Tomas Jin was right: it was easy to pick up, and the moves came back to her quickly. Before she knew it, she was laughing at the simple and slightly ridiculous moves and watching the people around her performing them—including Abby in those platform boots she could barely walk in, much less dance in.

"I'm cutting in." Ziva blinked in surprise at the light words, but didn't even have time to process them before she found herself in Tony's arms, his right hand in the middle of her back and the fingers of his left intertwined with those on her right. She slipped her free arm up to his shoulder almost without thinking, and was surprised again at the realization that he knew what he was doing.

"I did not know that you dance, Tony," she mocked in an almost sing-song voice. He grinned, squeezing her hand slightly.

"PE major," he said as if that explained anything. At her frown, he elaborated, "Had to take a dance class, and I heard—"

"That girls like boys who swing?" she finished for him, completely aware of the double meaning of her words. It was his turn to blink in surprise before he realized that she was teasing and just grinned.

"Is it working?" he asked as he released her hand for an impromptu spin, which she performed fluidly. She couldn't help but laugh again.

"I will say, Tony, that you never cease to amaze me." She saw his grin at her words and just couldn't miss the opportunity for another dig as he pulled her back close to him. "And all this time I thought you were just on the team to be another pretty boy."

"Pretty _face_, Ziva," he corrected, tightening his hold on her fractionally. "A pretty _boy_ is something entirely different."

She frowned. "If they are both expressions but mean different things, how am I supposed to know which to use when?"

Tony chuckled before he gave her his widest grin. "Let's leave it at this: you can call me a pretty _face_ all you want, but you're not allowed to call me a pretty _boy_." She rolled her eyes and shook her head slightly, but didn't argue.

Too soon for her liking, the song ended, although Tony didn't release her and Tomas Jin kept playing simple riffs with one hand while using the other to drink from his water bottle. Taking his cue from Jin, the bass player began to add accompanying chords, and soon the whole band had launched into something easier, or at least less strenuous, to dance to.

The song, while probably still technically classified as 'swing', was much more sedate than the Charleston, and almost without any transition, Ziva found herself dancing again, this time in a fairly simple swing step that they teach in many partners dance classes. When Tony spun her, she caught a glimpse of Jeremy Geist pulling his wife out of her seat, leading her by the hand toward the dance floor. A turn in the opposite direction gave her a view of Abby and McGee, the scientist trying—and coming close to failing—to get the junior agent to pick up on some fairly simple dance moves, pulling a grin out of Ziva.

Her eyes again moved to the Geists. Although they were keeping everything simple, probably taking Ariadne's pregnancy and injured ankle into account, they had a fluidity and easy familiarity that told Ziva that this was hardly their first time together on the dance floor. Their eyes were on each other with an open, happy expression that alone was enough to tell Ziva that Ariadne hadn't been lying when she inferred how content they were together, an expression that told her that while Jeremy might not know everything about his wife and what went through her head, he knew everything he needed to: that she loved him and no matter what, would always come back to him. Ziva watched as Jeremy released his wife's hip for an easy spin, her green dress flaring slightly, her loose black curls following her movements before she again settled into her husband's arms with a laugh at something he said.

Ariadne's eyes left her husband's briefly to rest on Ziva, and that smile widened. She arched an eyebrow in a way that Ziva couldn't help but understand, and Ziva felt herself smile. She finally returned her attention to her partner to see him watching her, his confidence on the dance floor obvious not only by the way he moved, but also on the way he led without being forceful. Her smile widened, earning her one in reply—one of Tony's completely honest grins, one without any of his usual showiness, and Ziva allowed her hand to brush along the back of his head more than necessary during an underarm pass, seeing his grin widen even further in response.

Maybe Ariadne Geist was right; maybe there was something waiting for her here, something that she could change her life for, and maybe she would go after it someday. But even years after her marriage, Ariadne still had loose ends to tie up. She had just gotten one taken care of, but Ziva knew from experience that the past had a way of making itself known even years after one would expect. She had always wanted to make sure her past was in her past, every knot and string and end accounted for, before she even considered asking for anything else in her life, and for the moment, she didn't want anything other than what she had right there: friends who cared for her, a job she enjoyed, and a partner who could make her smile on the worst day of her life, could exasperate and amuse her simultaneously, would always watch her six—even when she didn't want him to—and given the chance, would give her anything she asked of him.

But this was the first time that she realized that maybe she wouldn't have to wait for her past to sort itself out before all of that could change.

**The End**


End file.
